Raccoon: 6; Us: 0
The above would be the score of battles between us and (what I am now picturing as a mean, vindictive) raccoon over the freshly laid sod in our back-yard.
For about a week now we’ve woken up to find the sod on one side of our yard rolled up and tossed around like carpet, and some of my strawberries turned up. To alleviate this problem S and I have tried:
1. ignoring the problem. This worked for 1 night where I guess said raccoon forgot where we lived
2. putting red chilli flakes down. This made him mad and in retaliation he turned up more of our yard upside down
3. putting a radio out there turned on (softly as to not disturb our neighbors) onto a talk radio station. As we discovered the next morning Christian talk did not inspire him to be a better critter. Instead he’s relying on us to turn the other cheek
4. insecticide to kill the grubs he’s after. We’re only 2 days into this, but clearly it’s not an over-night win
So at this stage, not only is this dude getting a gourmet meal every night, but he’s succeeded in keeping us indoors, as the insecticide is not something I would expose the kids to. S is ready to spend the night outside with a hose at this point. I keep telling him that all that’s going to do is get us a 1) dug up yard; 2) a husband with a cold and a major crick in the neck who would’ve slept through that night’s attack; 3) yet again a fed critter.
The funny thing is that I used to think raccoons are cute. Now all I can picture is a scroungy, wet, beady-eyed critter, that is foaming at the mouth and wringing its little paws on how to make our lawn worse off.
Next up, some friends have offered to loan us their watering scarecrows. I can’t wait!
Dear God. It’s worse than I thought.
If you want the # of the guy that takes them “elsewhere”, let me know. It was the only thing that worked for us. They are horrid little creatures.
Katie,
Well, we’ve had 2 nights without critter visits. Hopefully this will be an ongoing trend. Once the grass sets I expect them to leave.