A Clinically Insane Raccoon Roams My Streets at Night!

[MugwumpHasNoLiver]

First off, a little background. There is an abundance of stray cats living in my neighborhood. My grandmother, to put it lightly, is a lover of animals, and to put it harshly, is a crazy cat lady. In our heyday, we've had about fifteen cats living in the house, but it's dwindled to about seven because of various mysterious, non-poison-related deaths. We get so many, because my grandmother, when she's not cleaning up after my obese and useless family, feeds and domesticates them, usually as kittens. Now, our latest cat is significantly older. He's anywhere between one and two years old and his name is Betty. We've somehow managed to miss his very prominent testicles and named him that because, in my Grandmother's words, "He looked like a Betty." My youngest brother letter gave him the surname "White", so I've been calling him "Betty White".

Earlier this summer my previous animal nemesis, Fat Mama Raccoon (who, as the name should imply, is the mother of my current animal nemesis) and her four miniaturized doppelgangers terrorized the cat food bowl and devoured it's contest, with horrendous and savage speed. She and most of her litter has since moved on, with the exception of one: the runt.

At first I thought he was adorable. In fact, I thought raccoons in general were adorable. With their beady little black eyes, and their little masks, and their little paws, which are almost like hands. "They're like little furry burglars! What's not to love about raccoons! They're obviously the product of a benevolent and loving god!" Well, I was an ignorant, pretentious virgin back when I uttered those colossally stupid words, and although still two out of three, I can safely say that I've been a fool my entire life, but am one no longer. These creatures are abominations and should be purged from the earth for reasons that I will now make clear to you.

My grandmother stopped leaving food out for the coons after that runt went crazy and tried to climb up her thigh. She was trying to put some food in the dish, but the coon tried to dart up her body for the cup in her hand. She screams and runs away, the little pellets flying everywhere like a rain of Coco puffs. I saw it with my own two eyes, and was thus the first witness to the savage cruelty of these animals. That was only last week. Today, Betty came home today with a huge cut across his face, so I didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone. How could I? How could I leave him alone knowing that psycho coon is out there? We can't bring Betty into the house until Wednesday, when we can afford to buy flea powder, but I digress. When I went out just now to pet him, I saw that crazy raccoon attacking a water bottle in the gutter.

I'm like "Whatever. As long as it's being stupid over there and not over here."

But after a few minutes, he comes running up onto my porch. I'm thinking "Bitch, you serious have the nerve to come up here while I'm here! Learn your place, inconsiderate negro of the animal kingdom!" Then the little fucker attacks my foot! Well, it only clawed at my pant-leg, but I know it was going in for the kill, it was snarling and everything. Then, after realizing there's still no food in the bowl, he tries to attack Betty. I'm standing in the door frame and start kicking the door, which scares Betty away, so the coon just kind of wanders off. It goes into the bushes where a small possum is waddling around, so that crazy bitch raccoon starts attacking it, too! They run around in circles, the coon taking slashes at the possums face until it give up, obviously scared by all the pounding on my porch that I was doing.

But, wait! There's more! A few more minutes and he comes back, jumps on top of this owl statue we've got on our wooden railing, rides it right into the garbage can beneath it, knocks that over, starts wrestling with a cat bed, while snarling obscenely, then digs a bunch of dirt out of a planter. Yes, ingenious and brilliant raccoon! We've buried cat-food in a planter! You've seen through our clever ruse, you magnificent idiot! It then follows Betty all the way from my porch to this hole in the street next door and tries to attack him again!

In short, raccoons are a barbaric, stupid, violent (and kind of adorable) plague upon mankind. If I'm pushed any farther, I will track him down and make him into a hat. Not only that, I'll wear the hat and regale future generations of my epic of triumph of man over nature. There where will be songs comparable to Homer's Odyssey sung of this battle. I myself will author the raccoon equivalent of Moby Dick as the coons blood dries on my hands. In fact, I shall write the book out in long hand, in the raccoon's blood. (The working title is Moby Rick, but I'll probably drop it once I can find a nice metaphor to hammer into your skulls.) If that raccoon does not either learn there is no more food here for him, or remembers that man is his master, and could roast him in our wondrous microwaves if we so chose, THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY.

Discuss.

[EvangelionFan]

Is it possible to call animal control to bust the Raccoon, or would that in some way be counter-productive to your families' pro-cat stance?

[KnightmareX13]

I know someone who is having a similar problem with animals stealing from the cat bowl, except with them its a skunk family, which they decided for obvious reasons to leave alone. I did have a raccoon problem, they would tear up our garden in the middle of the night, so I set up one of those havahart traps baited with some stuff from the garden. Next morning had one not so happy raccoon in the trap, and after he calmed down a bit I relocated him about a mile a so away in another set of woods.

[child of Lilith]

Just make sure the damn thing doesn't bite you. It's a wild animal so there's no telling what it could be carrying.

[NemZ]

Get yourself a pitchfork.

[ran1]

Go to 4chan's advice board.

When Reichu had a problem with a deer in her yard, I made a thread about on /adv/ and they had a bunch of good ideas.

Just make sure your post has an image of Mugi. /adv/ loves Mugi.

[Xard]

Kill it.

[TehDonutKing]

Is it possible to call animal control to bust the Raccoon, or would that in some way be counter-productive to your families' pro-cat stance?

The only time you should ever go to animal control is to adopt.

Animal control is an organization of animal abusers.

A friend of mine had a dog. Some dickface from animal control drove by, shot it with a tranquilizer, chased it, than beat it to death with a stick. All because it didn't have on a leash.

They also wait only a week before they kill the animals. And the living conditions there are worse than the Humane Society. It might have shitty living conditions too, but at least they try not to!

And stray animals that aren't hurting anyone are enslaved, too!

Animal control sucks.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Just make sure the damn thing doesn't bite you. It's a wild animal so there's no telling what it could be carrying.

This.

[KnightmareX13]

This.

True but in an effort to fight rabies in wild animals many animal control agencies have started setting baited traps, whose food contains a dose of rabies vaccine. Check this out it has some info. on removing raccoons.
[url]http://www.aaanimalcontrol.com/professional-trapper/howtogetridofraccoons.htm[/url]

[kirri]

I did have a raccoon problem, they would tear up our garden in the middle of the night, so I set up one of those havahart traps baited with some stuff from the garden. Next morning had one not so happy raccoon in the trap, and after he calmed down a bit I relocated him about a mile a so away in another set of woods.

^Do this. My Dad has to capture and relocate numerous raccoons each year using this method, because they eat the grapes off of our grapevine.

[scarmullet]

We had a raccoon wander into our house a few weeks ago, an old one too. Didn't attack, just wanted out. I kinda think the coon was once domesticated because he was scratching at the door, and looking at me like a dog.

I used to have a raccoon as a pet when I was a kid. As long as you get them while their eyes are closed, they will make great pets. Smart little thing (he ate cat food and used the litter box), mischievous too. He used to take the plug in the sink, put it in the drain and turn on the water. Our Neighbor shot him because of the common misconception that friendly acting coons have rabies. After wards, we got another one, but the cats got to him and disemboweled him.

[CorporalChaos]

Raccoons make great pets if you get them when they're young enough. Of course, the same could be said about a lot of animals. Hell, my dad and his brothers even kept a baby alligator as a pet for a few months when they were kids (lol 60s florida).

Raccoons, though, seem to have different personalities based on where you find them. I've run across a few at my dad's office on the outskirts of town, and they're paranoid as hell. Pretty much hiss at you if you get within 10 feet of them.

Country raccoons, though, seem a lot more laid back. I see them in the yard every now and then at night, and they just kind of scamper around. I mean, I've been able to hand them food on occasion (probably not a good idea, but I figure at least I can make something's night a little better).

But yeah, city raccoons are annoying as hell. As for your problem, just find a way to make its nightly food raids as hellish as possible. They catch on eventually.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Discuss.

Best story ever told on EGF, methinks.

Also: [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnMk6ABXg28[/url]

[Synapsid]

Raccoon...cat food

You have to get rid of that bowl and anything they've touched, I'm not kidding! Raccoons are a reservoir to an incredible number of diseases, some of them they can just spread by fluids they've left behind .
If you aren't going to throw away that stuff you'd need to douse it in bleach at the least; if not it wouldn't be hard to have something spread to you, your grandmother or your cats. By the way, when he scratched you did he tear skin?

Oh, and I know this sounds horible, but you probably should make good on that talk about removing the racoon. They don't just spread disease, they also kill cats, and they do so pretty regularly, If they're in groups they'll kill dogs too. You definately can't let any of your cats out so long as you have racoons around.

[Defectron]

Oh, and I know this sounds horible, but you probably should make good on that talk about removing the racoon. They don't just spread disease, they also kill cats, and they do so pretty regularly, If they're in groups they'll kill dogs too. You definately can't let any of your cats out so long as you have racoons around.

sounds like this was a missed opportunity when they were making the food of the gods movies.

[bananafaerie]

Grab a shotgun, a poker, a vase, anything and attempt to scare the crap out of that bitch. >:o

[supershinjiasukashipper]

Yeah, this is totally a real raccoon, and it is certainly not me in a raccon suit trying to spread terror in your neighborhood.

Seriously though, I would have killed that sucker by now, at least to put it out of its own misery. Kill it man.

[LeoXiao]

Lure it to lower ground, and then DESTROY IT WITH HIGH EXPLOSIVES!

[MugwumpHasNoLiver]

Well, two days ago, we got Betty in the house, and he just loves it. He gets along fine with the other cats and everyone's nice to him. We opened the door and he just walked right in. As for the raccoons, my grandma's plan was always just to stop feeding them and wait for them to leave. But, this was undermined somewhat by the fact that my left a big box of stale bread and other crap out for him. Now he'll never leave. Seeing as it can't hurt Betty and winter is coming, I'll just say that this epic battle of man vs. nature has ended in a draw and move on with my life.