It was funny afterwards, but while it was going on, I was pretty scared.
When I came upstairs, we thought the one raccoon we chased out was the only one.
So when I plopped down some take home leftovers from Lynn on the kitchen counter,
turned around to go downstairs and get more stuff outta my Jeep,
saw the raccoon waddling towards me, I let out such a whoop.
Bill came running in through the sliding deck doors, cuz he was taking the dog out to pee.
I yelled to Bill, "ONE MORE RACCOON! GRAB THE DOG AND DON'T LET HER GO!"
The raccoon was now at the top of the stairs that lead back down to the garage,
but also in the doorway of the kitchen. He kind of arched his back up just a bit,
and that is when I started screaming and stomping my feet like a wild woman.
He turned and went down the stairs (I have no idea Jamie was still down there)
and I chased him all the way down and around the corner into the basement.
That is when Jamie yelled that she was on top of the laundry table.
(she had figured out what was going on by now)
By now the raccoon was running past the laundry room area (well out of the path of the raccoon)
and I chased him through the cat door into the garage. I grabbed the dustbroom and pan as weapons,
opened the door to the garage and went past my Jeep to get a view of the cat door that leads outside.
It was flapping back and forth, and the raccoon had obviously just gone through it.
I still checked the garage out thoroughly, and poke and rattled a few items just to flush out any hiding animal.
Then I grabbed the Critter-Ridder spray and soaked the 2 cat doors.
The cats HATE the smell but still use the doors.
That took about 10 minutes, with Bill helping me with a pitchfork in his hands, until we finally decided the raccoons were gone.
Bill had locked Gigi in Jamie's bathroom.
Bill went upstairs to make sure one more time the house was clear. That is when I heard Jamie quietly say, "Can I get down now?"
OMG! She was still up on the table in the laundry room!
Smart kid though for staying put!
We've decided to take the cat food out of the basement. The raccoon was in the basement for the cat food.
I think when we came home, he got scared and ran up away from us into the house instead of back out the door he came in.
We'll keep the cat food bin here in the computer room for now on.
Will be just too much of a ongoing battle if we keep it in the basement.
And the cats don't seem to care about the raccoons. They are just sat around on the couches and watched mommy go berzerk chasing the raccoon.
Especially Willow, our big Maine Coon. We see the raccoons all the time outside, and he doesn't pay any attention to them,
and the raccoons don't bother with our cats either.
All this while still recuperating from surgery. I'm lucky I didn't hurt myself!
No poops anywhere in the house this time...we were lucky.
