Masked Intruder, Redux

In June, GM told you the story of a masked intruder who slept one of on top of his bike shed. The intruder was, of course, a raccoon. After getting alarmed at finding a raccoon in such an urban setting and calling animal control, GM learned that they are a lot more common than he thought, and the city doesn’t think they’re cause for alarm.

After the raccoon left that night, GM thought it have moved on, since he saw no evidence of it returning.

Cut to a couple weeks ago, at least.

Well, before we get to that, GM should first mention that he found a couple dead rats on or near the shed in August. The location made him a bit suspicious, particularly since they were the first dead rats he ever found in his garden. But he didn’t want to make any assumptions. Yet.

Now we can cut to a couple weeks ago, when GM noticed a couple watering cans and other things inexplicably knocked over. He had an “a ha” moment and checked the security cam footage. And low and behold: the raccoon was back. It seemed to show up every night and just chill on the shed for a few hours. It didn’t stick around for the daytime, like it did in June, but it seemed to find the place a comfy spot to hang.

At this point, GM honestly didn’t mind. It appeared healthy. And hey, maybe it would kill or otherwise deter some rats.

But sadly the truce didn’t last.

First of all, it seemed to enjoy messing up GM’s stuff. It continued to knock cans over and repeatedly threw the rope lights to the ground. What a jerk.

And then one night GM came down to the kitchen to the sound of his daughter rifling through the cupboard, probably looking for a cookie. Except then GM heard his daughter upstairs.

Oh no.

GM crooked his neck over and saw that the raccoon had sauntered through the open back door and was munching on a bag of dried pasta. GM made some noise and it ran out the door.

But then that bastard just walked right back in. GM made some more noise, and it kept munching. It took a thrown shoe to get it to leave again. At which point GM closed up the back door.

Clearly it was time for some bigger guns. So GM looked up a reputable trapper the next day to come take it away. But wouldn’t you know it, DC law prohibits trappers from carrying raccoons more than a few blocks away if they aren’t caught living inside your home. This would accomplish nothing. The trapper suggested spraying the garden with coyote urine and hoping it worked.

GM did not spray his garden with coyote urine.

But nonetheless, the raccoon hasn’t show up since. GM’s still holding his breath that it might return, but for now his dried pasta is safe.

Anyhow, goes to show that sometimes the great outdoors is a lot less outdoors than you’d like.