Author Topic: Interesting Raccoon Article (Read 2895 times)

LeeAnne151 · « **on:** November 10, 2009, 02:09:00 PM »

http://realestate.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=22407490&gt1=35000

Johns · « **Reply #1 on:** November 10, 2009, 06:57:15 PM »

Great article, Leeanne. It should be required reading for all new home owners. Come to think of it, just about everyone should read it. A friend of ours had one of those bandits take up residence in the furnace ductwork of her house and expired under there. First thing she noticed was the immense number of flies that suddenly inhabited one of her bathrooms. Was a difficult and expensive thing to rectify.

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #2 on:** November 10, 2009, 07:24:38 PM »

“raccoons are basically everywhere,” Zeveloff adds. Just about the only places in the nation that don’t have them are parts of the Great Basin and elevations above 5,000 feet"

Yet so many ponders are convinced they aren't in their neighborhoods and blame cats for their raccoon damage and losses.....

Jerry · « **Reply #3 on:** November 10, 2009, 10:48:21 PM »

Good one LeeAnne.

Too bad they are so damn cute. The local elementary school feeds them!
I objected, they think I am meanie

txpondnut · « **Reply #4 on:** November 11, 2009, 05:48:02 AM »

Great info LeeAnne! I have a friend who has fed a female raccoon for years when she feeds her cats with no trouble at all. Then her screens where ripped open and her pet cockatiel was eaten along with some food in the house. It took awhile to catch the coon and it turned out to be a large male. She caught it in a live trap set up in her kitchen. She has now fixed all her screens on her house (it destroyed almost every one trying to get in) and still has the old female coming around but since she got rid of that renegade every thing is peaceful again.

tammie · « **Reply #5 on:** November 11, 2009, 08:42:28 AM »

We don't have racoons in Hawaii - but we have centipedes!
Tammie

Jerry · « **Reply #6 on:** November 11, 2009, 09:37:52 AM »

and Mongosses or is it Mongeese?

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #7 on:** November 11, 2009, 10:12:04 AM »

I had a neighbor behind us who fed stray cats and raccoons for years. Could not get her to stop, she has been gone for several years and they are all still here.....

The electric fence around the fish pond works very well as long as it is plugged in

but they trash my container water gardens and small ponds on a routine basis. I just don't know what to do about it. Bob built covers for the three liner ponds in the front yard and they look so ugly....I'm still devastated at the destruction in my greenhouse pond and I keep finding the door open, I think they are opening it, it isn't Bob or I.

Jerry, go ahead and be mean, turn them in to fish and wildlife or vector control. They will set them straight about feeding raccoons.

Jonna · « **Reply #8 on:** November 11, 2009, 10:19:38 AM »

Tammie, I have centipedes too. Are they a problem? I keep thinking - or trying to convince myself - that they eat other bugs so they are a boon. I hate the look though and they are always slithering out of things just as I touch them.

There are raccoons and coatimundis here. Coatis are just brown raccoons basically, I'm sure there is more of a difference but they act the same and they hang out together. Also possums are all around and iguanas, both will eat your garden. So far, my dogs have kept them all out of the yard. It's their job along with keeping unknown humans out as well.

Jerry · « **Reply #9 on:** November 11, 2009, 12:21:29 PM »

I have turned them in. I also offered free tours of the pond for kids. They seemed to like the idea.
Jonna I worked at the zoo as boy. Loved Coatimundies. Excuse the spelling.
Of course my relationship with them was not as a pond owner

tammie · « **Reply #10 on:** November 11, 2009, 01:44:04 PM »

I guess centipedes eat bugs... as far as I'm concerned they don't eat enough. The bite is unbelievably painfull! And they're icky - ever had one stand up and wave itself at you? No I wasn't smoking any wacky tabacky either! Just a couple of weeks ago we had to take a lady to the er because she got bit - twice on the foot. Within 10 minutes her foot swelled up so bad I thought it would pop! The er gave her morphine for the pain, it was that bad. Nope, sorry, centipedes and scorpions die here. Geckos eat bugs too, and they're cute, sort of.
Tammie

stacig · « **Reply #11 on:** November 11, 2009, 03:25:17 PM »

we have a family of them in and around our yard and they have yet to do any damage to the pond.we love thr little guys

LeeAnne151 · « **Reply #12 on:** November 11, 2009, 07:21:08 PM »

I think geckos are adorable.

I think I have some photos of the damage coons have done to my ponds. I'll have to look.

stacig · « **Reply #13 on:** November 11, 2009, 08:19:27 PM »

maybe my pond is not good enough for them.havent had a problem with them at all.and they are allways around

Jonna · « **Reply #14 on:** November 11, 2009, 08:48:24 PM »

Hoo boy! I haven't been bit by one of the centipedes yet so that really got my attention. They are inside everything I move out in the yard, if I water they come pouring out and slithering away. Some of then are a couple inches long. I haven't seen a scorpion in this house yet, we had a fair sized black one in some towels on the floor over at the condo one time, that's on the 3rd floor! I'm sure they are around but hopefully the cat gets them. It turns out that cats are great scorpion hunters, they are faster than the scorpion so rarely get bit, they wear them out and then kill them. My dog got bit on the nose by one up in Jalisco, we gave him some benedryl and he was OK. Silly mutt, he went right back over to the same area the next day. I shake out everything I pick up off the floor though, and shake out closed shoes before putting them on. Maybe that's why I hardly ever wear anything but flip flops.

I like the geckos, I click back at them sometimes and they answer. Right now the bats are becoming a problem again because the banyan fig in back has fruit. They cruise through the terrace and leave splat marks on all the walls, that poop is really hard to get off. Ahh, the tropics, you gotta love it or you'd go mad from the heat and the bugs.

tammie · « **Reply #15 on:** November 12, 2009, 08:13:05 AM »

Jonna - your centipedsare only a couple of inches long? Are you sure it's not a miliped? Millipeds don't bite but they get into your plants and do something to the roots that kills, or stunts the plant. The centipeds we have here are in the 5-12" range... We also have the blue ones, they're smaller, about 3" but they're more toxic then the red/brown ones.
Yes, geckos are cute

but it sure is hard to get the gecko poop off of everything! Try getting if off of textured walls... We had the house tented for termites a few years ago and I was looking forward to cutting down on the gecko population. No such luck - tenting with those super toxic chemicals doesn't kill them, they go into "suspended animation" according to the pest control guys. Are the bats that you have the kind that eat mosquitos? I think I'd tolerate them it they are. Like you have a choice, right?

Tammie

Jonna · « **Reply #16 on:** November 12, 2009, 10:14:43 AM »

Well, I looked at pictures of millipedes and centipedes and the millipedes look more rounded as well as having a lot more legs. Mine are more flat, have pinchers at the front end and do raise up if cornered. I guess they are just a smaller type. Jeez, I hope I never see one that is 5" or 6". Ours are a reddish brown color, the pinchers are much redder than the body.

The bats that are around now are fruit bats, they like the figs on the banyan and scoop water from the pool. There are mosquito or insect eating bats around as well but I rarely see them, I wish they'd hang out here more I'd be happy to clean up after them. The fruit bats come swooping into the terrace, do a loop and exit but they always seem to poop while turning. Someone said that they fly in, sense the wall at the back, panic, crap, then make the turn. Their poop is full of fig seeds and is a dark reddish brown, it is like concrete. It takes a brush and an ammonia based cleaner sprayed on and allowed to soak a bit to get it off. Oh, and a ladder too.

I don't yet have so many geckos that I notice their poop on things. They are really small. I have larger ones over at the condo in Akumal but they seem to hang out over the plants for some wonderful reason and most of the poop falls in there. There is one that lives behind the clock in the kitchen and I had to move the toaster because of it. You don't want to think about that much.

miguynmkoi · « **Reply #17 on:** November 12, 2009, 02:06:36 PM »

As a homeowner I do not care for raccoons - they climb onto my roof, go to the top where I have solar panels for heating water and nest around the pipes. There are small plies of poo on my roof and the metal roofing that used to have colored sand is now bare. There are more twigs and leaves than the wind can normally carry up and under the panels. Did I mention the noise they make? Ugggh! They play at night, 'nuf said.

As a ponder they have eaten many a fish, tossed and ripped apart enough lilies and other waterplants. Now everything is netted. The small waterbuckets have a chicken wire mesh over them to keep out the mauraders.

We used to have a leopard gecko we loved for over 12 years. Then DD decides to clean his glass cage and then.....leaves him out in the sun for the whole afternoon. :'( I'm sure he's in Gecko heaven now. This happened about 8 some years ago. His old shelter sits under the nectarine tree as does Dizzy.

miguynmkoi · « **Reply #18 on:** November 12, 2009, 02:12:22 PM »

Forgot to mention - good article, LeeAnn. Scary about the chimney!

Indiana Karen · « **Reply #19 on:** November 14, 2009, 12:38:15 PM »

We had some friends that took on an orphaned raccoon this spring. They made a house pet out of it. It grew.......became destructive......... they put it outside..........it tore up the doors and windows trying to get in.......they decided to relocate it............felt guilty............went back and got it.........it tore up the roof around the chimney trying to get in.........relocated it again........felt guilty again........went back to get it and couldn't find it. :'( I hope they learned their lesson to let the professional rehabbers take care of things.

Karen

OldMarine · « **Reply #20 on:** November 28, 2009, 08:23:04 PM »

Ove the last year, we have had several reports in the Seattle area of racoons attacking pets and the owners when the pet owner came to the rescue. The latest racoon attack report was a couple weeks ago in Seattle where a lady was walking her samll dog. The racoon came out of the bushes and tried to take the dog, both the dog and the owner was scratched and seriously biten. The authorities are trying to discurage people from leaving any uncovered trash or pet food outside.

They used to really tear up my old 80 tub pond getting to my gold fish. Now they can't even get into my back yard.

Mikey · « **Reply #21 on:** November 28, 2009, 10:41:58 PM »

Today I found a hole they chewed/scratched in my liner. Now I will have to remove the bridge so I can access and repair the damage.... It's illegal to relocate them here because all that does is make them a problem for someone else.....kind of like our parole system...... So next week I will call some trappers to see what they charge to trap and euthanize them.

karen J · « **Reply #22 on:** November 29, 2009, 09:18:39 AM »

My hubby's mom used to rehab raccoons back in the 70's. She had one female who didn't like Kevin and bit him on the arm. They don't just bite, they bite and then shake. It's very painful & hubby still has the scar.

I always thought it's be really great to retire down to Mexico or Hawaii... but after reading this thread I'm not so sure. $:-\$ Centipedes that bite? Hummm.

We had to remove the pretty grape vine growing on our pergola because of the raccoons. Every night 5 or 6 of them would climb up there, suck the insides out of the grapes, and throw the skins down onto the deck. Every morning I'd have piles of coon poop and grape skins all over the place.