I have a long history of being defeated by raccoons. The City of Toronto and Province of Ontario do not allow me to use weapons of mass raccoon destruction. My methods have proved deficient. Any input would be appreciated.
The first war, in another house, started when a family of raccoons occupied my chimney. We could hear them playing on top of the flue. At the same time as the raccoons made their home in the chimney, our street was being repaved, and we had just put in new windows in the house. They were getting up to the roof by way of an old tv antenna tower at the back of the house. Someone told me that they do not like bleach, so i soaked some rags in bleach and tied them around the antenna. The raccoons seemed not to mind the bleach, so this accomplished nothing except to ruin the clothes I was wearing while doing so . One y day shortly thereafter, I stood on the curb with my wife and neighbours, looking up at the raccoon family poking their heads out of the chimney. The raccoons were laughing and waving at us. I bent down and picked up one of the stones from the paving. My sensible wife said “don’t throw that stone at them, you will put it right through the new window we have even paid for yet”. “Even I do not that have that bad an arm”, I replied.
After we paid for the broken new window, I got professionals to come and properly cap the chimney when the raccoon family was out on a picnic or something.
Now, to the recent past. Last winter (06-07) the raccoons discovered that a crawlspace at the rear of our present house (with dimensions about 20’ x 8’) makes an warm and cozy raccoon condominium. I called someone to seal them out, if possible. He was supposed to come on a Thursday. On the day before, the raccoons, having chewed through the insulation under the house, expose a pipe running into our kitchen. It freezes and bursts and water pours into our basement with great destructive power. The next couple of days are spent with the insurers and such. That Saturday, while skiing with my daughter, a ski patroller (!) runs into me, breaking my arm. I require surgery and I am out of commission for months. I cannot help my wife deal with the basement (or anything else for that matter). I cannot prove that the raccoons paid the patroller to injure me, but i have my suspicions.
I then pay an animal control company to get rid of the raccoons. They eventually, at great cost to me, trap one of the raccoons and move him to a new neighborhood (near Mayor Miller’s house, I hope). Then they have to stop, because it is spring, and the little baby raccoons now living under my kitchen need their mommy and daddy.
Having partially recovered by summer I make it my mission to exclude the raccoons from the crawlspace. Over 2 weekends , I dig a trench about a foot deep around the three open sides of the crawlspace, nail hardware mesh all around and bury it in the trench so that the Raccoons cannot dig under. I make a one way trap door with spring hinges so they can get out but not back in. They leave, and we do not see or hear them again. Victory is mine!
Or so I thought. At the corner of the extension of the house creating the crawlspace, there is one spot where the concrete footings prevent me from burying the fencing. Here the raccoons, with great diligence, have pulled out the staples nailing the wire to the frame hose and squeezed in. I counter by nailing boards flush to the ground and house, backed by more mesh so that the cannot chew though.
One day, I hear a noise and go back to investigate. A scrawny raccoon is sitting by the closed up hole, scrabbling at it. He looks at me forlornly, I laugh at him and pelt him with snowballs. This is what species domination should feel like.
I am wrong. He subsequently finds a tiny spot by the concrete where he can dig a hole and gets back in. I hear a noise again, and go out to laugh at him once more. When I see what he has done, I am finally defeated. I cannot unseal the trap door I made until the ice and soil around it thaw, and winter is never going to end this year. I therefore cannot seal the hole again because I do not want to trap him under the house. He has defeated me and I am a broken man.
