So yesterday evening I drove into our driveway.....

Denverdave

Denverdave

Resident Ragamuffin
...that's it - Just drove into the driveway. I did. Seriously.

Oh yeah - something was staring at me from beside the juniper bush in the middle of the front yard. Several somethings. Dark somethings. Not cats - way to big. Not dogs. Raccoons. Three of them. About eight feet away. A mom and two little ones, but not too little. And momma was giving me the evil eye. Raccoons can get nasty when they want to. Especially when little raccoons are around. I didn't move much. Momma raccoon stared me down until the kiddos walked over to the huge bush we have on the far side of the front yard. I gotta get a phone with a better camera.
 
Yeah raccoons have a lot of attitude.

When I first took up astronomy, I would be out observing by myself in the dark in a nearby park, and on some occasions a raccoon would be relentlessly trying to steal my midnight snack. I'd look up and he'd be right next to me, I chase him away (which you practically have to kick them in the face to do) and then a few minutes later he'd be right there again.
 
When I was a kid, we had a house that was set down in the woods with a wrap-around deck. One night my folks and eye were eating dinner out there, and we looked over to see 8 tiny sets of eyes, stacked up in sets of two, on either side of a small tree. It was pretty adorable. Like idiots, we actually fed the raccoons that would come around by hand. They love pizza crust, evidently. Nothing bad ever happened as a result, but LOTS of bad things could have happened.
 
They could have been mutant swamp creature racoons. Good thing you didn't mess with them. You could have gotten bit and turned into a mutant swamp creature racoon zombie and infected your family in your effort to eat their brains. You really dodged a bullet there.
 
We have a lot of raccoons around here. Also tons of squirrels and rabbits, and occasional skunks. And we are in the middle of a suburb. But we are close to a big park and we have a greenbelt area right behind our back fence. Generally no issues with the raccoons at all, but the whole mama with babies thing changes that. In the past month or so I have seen a lot of raccoon roadkill in our area - way, WAY more than usual so I am guessing that for whatever reason there has been a population growth spurt of 'coons in our area.
 
In my old place in DC we used to have a small back patio behind the house. If you were out there long enough, a raccoon or possum would inevitably come trundling through and climb the tree. I actually really enjoyed it. It made you forget you were in the city for a few brief moments.
 
I had a raccoon/skunk fight under my house one night. That was interesting. We have plenty of both around here, but I suspect one of them got a particularly good piece of garbage from our can and didn't feel like sharing. That skunk must have sprayed every 2 minutes for a couple of hours.
 
335clone said:
I had a raccoon/skunk fight under my house one night. That was interesting. We have plenty of both around here, but I suspect one of them got a particularly good piece of garbage from our can and didn't feel like sharing. That skunk must have sprayed every 2 minutes for a couple of hours.
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The skunk was spraying under your house? Yuk!
 
My bedroom used to be in my attic. Occasionally I'd hear noises on the roof and take a look out of the window. On more than one occasion a set of glowing raccoon eyes were staring back at me from the other side of the glass. The tree that used to be next to the house was cut down so I don't have that problem anymore.
 
Raccoons are definitely pesky and destructive, but I miss seeing them scurrying around at night. Had a friend who went out of town for a month, and while he was out a family of raccoons made their way into the attic and then down through the ceiling. Thoroughly trashed his house.

Where we live now, we just have possums... and my neighbors poison them. Makes me sad.
 
Dave... my wife and I pulled into our driveway and as the garage door was opening up, I looked to the left at the trash can just outside the garage door to see an extremely large raccoon was standing up in front of the trash bin, holding the lid open with one arm and looking down into it for food.

We're talking one of the large (100 gallon I think) bins with the rolling wheels, so this damned thing was over 4 feet long with arms and legs outstretched. :messedup:

It ran off, but I caught it JUMPING OUT of the trash can as I pulled in the driveway a different time. I decided I DID NOT want to open the lid and come face to face with that fuckin' thing eating garbage, so I started putting a big ass bungee cord across the lid so you can't lift it with one hand (paw)
 
tiger roach said:
The skunk was spraying under your house? Yuk!
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Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was summer and we had a fan in the window of our bedroom, so we kept getting wafted with each spray, but didn't want to turn off the fan in hopes it would stop and we'd get clean air. that was my second worst skunk experience.

The worst was one morning in late fall when the kids were in 2nd and 5th grade. I dropped them at school and was hangiing around the blacktop talking to some other parents. A skunk got surprised in a garbage can by one of the classrooms, and sprayed when a kid startled him. That kid ran away, yelled skunk, and puked. That started a chain reaction of curious kids going to the can, getting sprayed, and puking. Within 5 minutes there was a cloud of skunk spray across the blacktop, which was now covered in a couple dozen puke splatters. It was hilarious, especially when the teachers came around to open up their classrooms. The look on their faces was priceless.
 
335clone said:
Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was summer and we had a fan in the window of our bedroom, so we kept getting wafted with each spray, but didn't want to turn off the fan in hopes it would stop and we'd get clean air. that was my second worst skunk experience.

The worst was one morning in late fall when the kids were in 2nd and 5th grade. I dropped them at school and was hangiing around the blacktop talking to some other parents. A skunk got surprised in a garbage can by one of the classrooms, and sprayed when a kid startled him. That kid ran away, yelled skunk, and puked. That started a chain reaction of curious kids going to the can, getting sprayed, and puking. Within 5 minutes there was a cloud of skunk spray across the blacktop, which was now covered in a couple dozen puke splatters. It was hilarious, especially when the teachers came around to open up their classrooms. The look on their faces was priceless.
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Holy crap, man, that needs to be a scene in a movie. :grin:
 
Denverdave said:
We have a lot of raccoons around here. Also tons of squirrels and rabbits, and occasional skunks. And we are in the middle of a suburb. But we are close to a big park and we have a greenbelt area right behind our back fence. Generally no issues with the raccoons at all, but the whole mama with babies thing changes that. In the past month or so I have seen a lot of raccoon roadkill in our area - way, WAY more than usual so I am guessing that for whatever reason there has been a population growth spurt of 'coons in our area.
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Maybe they grow like gremlins - you know, all the recent water and all...:embarrassed:.
 
baron85 said:
In my old place in DC we used to have a small back patio behind the house. If you were out there long enough, a raccoon or possum would inevitably come trundling through and climb the tree. I actually really enjoyed it. It made you forget you were in the city for a few brief moments.
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Ten bonus points for using the word "trundling."
 
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