Travel Blog

This web site is about a series of funny stories and events that have happened to my family over the last few years. Hopefully you will enjoy them as we add a new story from time to time. This particular story is about the time that a family of raccoons found their way into our attic over our living room with the intention of making our attic their home. They only stayed for a short while, however the experience is not something I would want anyone to have to deal with.

Raccoons as we found out are very curious and very smart. They climbed up a 10 foot brick wall on the side of our home onto the garage roof and then pushed up the soffit to gain access to our attic. This is pretty common in urban areas and many people every year have to deal with this kind of situation. In fact over half the houses on our street had the same problem. I did not know this until I had to deal with them and did some research on the topic of raccoons in urban areas.

They raised their young in our attic before we realized what was happening. I started trying to take steps to get them out. I tried loud noise, I tried moth balls, I tried music turned up high . I found all of these solutions on the internet and only one of these work  so don’t waste your time.

I also tried trapping them and this is where it started to get interesting. Picture a humane trap up on our garage roof next to the opening in the soffit were they get into our attic. They cannot miss it and all they have to do is walk inside the trap to get some food and bingo we have a raccoon in a trap!

Trapping Raccoons

Well it turns out that trapping the young ones was no problem. Young children no matter what species do not listen to their parents. They paid the price and found themselves in a new home in the bush. The parents have seen this before and knew enough to not go inside the trap. We put peanut butter, jam, cheese, raw meat, cooked meat and a bunch of other things to entice them into the trap. Not only did they not go in the trap. They would reach through the side of the trap to reach the food and ate almost all of it without setting off the trap!

Well one day, late in the evening, I had just finished having a shower and decided to go outside and see if there was anything inside our trap. It was near dusk and this is typically the time they come out. They are nocturnal and like to hunt for food at night. I had a pair of shorts on, bare feet and no shirt. As I come out side the door of the house is blown shut by the wind and it locked automatically so I cannot get back into the house.

The Raccoon Attacks Me

As I am standing on the front step,  looking up at the trap on the roof, a huge raccoon comes walking around the side of the house across the driveway towards me. He is obviously planning on climbing the wall beside the front step to go back to his nice warm den.

When he sees me , he is half way across the driveway and he is quite surprised as am I. He stops and looks at me for a moment and then stands on his hind feet and hisses at me. Then takes a few steps forward and does it again. He is trying to intimidate me into leaving so he can get to his home.  I am defenseless and standing in my bare feet. What can I do?

Now I am not normally afraid of small animals. However when you are in your bare feet and a raccoon is advancing and hissing at you and they have taken you by surprise , what would you do?

What Do You Do

Well a story I had heard about a guy encountering a bear in the wild came to mind. He made himself as big as possible, waving his arms and making loud noises. The bear thought better of it and decided to back off, as did the guy in the story.  So I decided to try the same thing. I am a lot larger than a raccoon and so I must have looked really big to him. Can you imagine his surprise! He stopped hissing immediately, hesitated for a second while h thought about what he should do next. I hissed again and that was enough for him. He quickly scrambled around the side of the garage, not to be seen again!

I was able to ring the doorbell and get the attention of my wife who came and opened the door. When she heard my story she could not stop laughing at me. What a wimp! No sympathy at all and every time I retell this story, I get lot’s of laughs and guffaws. No one can really believe it.  I tend to act it out a bit as well when I am telling the story so it is funny. Hopefully the written word conveys in your mind a picture of what I felt as that huge raccoon was deciding to attack me or not!

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