OMFG Procyon lotor in my house.

[electricland]

Let me start from the beginning.

Last night I helped life_on_queen move Stuff from her apartment to my porch in preparation for the Yard Sale of Doom. We needed my parents' car for this, which for most of the day was in Alliston while my parents were at an OMB hearing, so there was much phoning back and forth and updating and rescheduling and I went to Designer Discount Fabrics to buy curtain fabric and stopped at Bakka to buy books and got home a bit after 7 to wait for them and have something to eat. It was filthy hot, so I opened the door on the third floor and then forgot all about it.

Some hours later, when we'd finished and had a beer and gone our separate ways, I got back home and headed up to bed. Remember yesterday's raccoon encounter? The same one, or a relative, was out on the not-deck again. I cooed a bit -- they are incredibly cute -- told it to bugger off, hung up my laundry, and went to bed.

This morning I noticed some crud on the floor in the hall that I didn't remember seeing before. My housekeeping is substandard, but I thought surely I would have noticed chunks of plaster lying around in the hall. So I looked around some more and noticed raccoon footprints in the hall and on one of the chairs in the living room. No destruction evident. I peered around some more -- the dining room was fine, the bathroom was fine -- and then headed into the kitchen.

Where I found the remains of a barbecued chicken, which had been on the bottom shelf of my fridge, lying on the rug.

It certainly solves the question of what I'm going to do with the rest of the chicken. It also suggests I'll be doing some serious cleaning in the near future.

(There were raccoon footprints in Jen's kitchen too, but I don't know if it got anything down there.)

So to recap: this raccoon climbed up the outside of the house to the third floor, walked in through the open door, went down to the second floor, opened my fridge, pulled out the chicken, ate the chicken, wandered around some more poking into things, and left.*

I'm getting a screen door.

*Jen points out that they only seem to leave the same way they came in, so it presumably came in the door on the third floor, walked down two flights of stairs in its wanderings and chicken-stealing, and then walked back upstairs to go out the third floor door again. I'm just glad it doesn't seem to have been in the house while I was there.

Comments

[ozreison.livejournal.com]

the same thing happened when I was having dinner at a firend's house. We ate outside int he carport, where she had a table set up. partway through dinner, I asked her what the noise was in the house. She hadn't heard anything, and dismissed it. Seems racoons had opened the screen door, gone into the kitchen, eaten a loaf of bread on the counter, and knocked some pans on the floor.

Make sure you get a locking screen door...

[electricland.livejournal.com]

You're so right.

Actually, we seem to be lucky, in that there isn't anything like as much destruction as they're capable of when they put their minds to it. One got into the kitchen at the cottage once and just trashed the place, it was unbelievable.

I still can't believe it got into the fridge.

[rolypolypony.livejournal.com]

Egads!

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

*lol*

It's that he Openned The Fridge that impresses/scares me.

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

I have a cat that can do something similar, which is why we duct-tape the fridge door. I am just grateful there are no raccoons in the UK. I have a nasty feeling they can probably figure out duct tape.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Probably. There's certainly a thriving trade (http://www.cbcunlocked.com/artman/publish/features/article_523.shtml) in gizmos (http://homeandgarden.canoe.ca/Homes/2005/07/04/1116754.html) to stop the little buggers getting into the green bins.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[lawgeekgurl.livejournal.com]

racoons are pretty clever. we have a huge one living in the tree right outside my office. he looks at me sometimes. I know he's trying to figure a way into the office to get my lunchies.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're right!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

...or, of course, he could be an industrial spy of some kind. Or he wants your stapler.

[lostvoice.livejournal.com]

He's a subcontractor to the window washers.

*smooch*

[raithen.livejournal.com]

ok, this made my morning!! (esp given my ant infestation....)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

I'm glad! I think.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

sisters at arms, and all ;) I figure something must be in the air (if only our mothers telling us we are substandard housekeepers through particularly insidious means ;).

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Better nip that behavior in the bud. Raccoons learn quickly.

They'll soon return... and in greater numbers.
/Ben Kenobi (;

And now, a funny raccoon story:
When my uncle was fixing up his house, he discovered that a momma raccoon and her babies were living in his attic. He figured he could live with them until it came time to address the attic. One day, he came home and saw little dirty footprints EVERYWHERE in the house.... leading upstairs. He immediately shut the door to the upstairs and followed the tracks to their source. In the basement. Where he found, in front of the furnace, a shredded rug and a lot of soot.

So, the little buggers had come through the outside vent, down through the furnace, and out into the house!

He went back upstairs, and found that they'd not stayed upstairs... so he got a rake from the garage and started to chase them out of the house. He got into the front foyer, and got the momma chased outside... but saw three wee little faces peeking through the bannister on the stairs. He decided to go out for a smoke while he figured what to do about the situation... and heard a "click" behind him.

He turned, and saw one of the baby raccoons leaning with its little paws on the storm door... which was, to his dismay, apparently locked.

So, there he was, outside the house, with the baby raccoons inside. With the locked door.

Fortunately, he managed to get in through the side door to the garage, and went back in and chased them all out, eventually... and called the chimney guy the next day to come and cap all of his ducts and vents. :D

[electricland.livejournal.com]

They locked him out of the house? That's HILARIOUS!

Luckily the weather's turned a bit cooler. I can survive in my room without leaving the door open. The thought of them wandering in and out of my bedroom while I'm asleep is not altogether pleasant...

[kernezelda]

Your raccoon story is much better than mine. *sulks*

Mine only come in through the cat door to eat the cats' food, and rifle through the pantry to drag away entire bags of the stuff. And on one occasion, a shoe.

Good luck with the screen door.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

A shoe? What did it want with a shoe, I wonder?

It came back last night and peered hopefully through the glass door. I told it off, and it retreated to the corner of the neighbours' deck and continued to peer hopefully. I guess I should be glad it hasn't brought any friends yet.

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

OH. MY. GODS!

:::is stunned:::

Just don't let it get hold of the TV remote clicker thingy.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Officemate mentioned I should be worried about it stealing my personal details, and I wondered if it might have sold all my stuff on eBay...

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

SO true! Be afraid, very afraid. Although if you could train it to vacuum you'd be golden.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Heee!

I mean: picking up after their mess is annoying, but better a raccoon intruder than a human one.

We've got a family of birds living in a nest in our chimney.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

When you put it that way... yeah.

I hope the birds all make it out OK! In our first clean-out of the basement I came across a mummified bird of some kind in the dirt of ages on the floor. BLECH.