Far from the madding raccoon

As noted from the title of this post, I wish I were far from that madding raccoon! 

I’ve been a bit preoccupied of late, dealing with a very annoying raccoon.  He has been my nemesis for two years now, and doesn’t show any signs of moving on. 

He tore up our trash until we used bungee cords to keep him out.  He has raided the bird feeders of their seeds nightly, and drank all the hummingbird nectar.  So we take the feeders in at dusk (sometimes he comes even earlier) but when we get home a little late…we’ve already had a visit and empty feeders.  And please don’t think me a wuss but I am honestly afraid to go out on my back deck at night fearing that I will run into the little devil.

The worse thing he has done is when he climbed a tree and reached in a birdhouse and (eek) ate the baby birds.

He ambles across my deck at dusk like he owns the place and isn’t afraid of anyone.  I can open the door and yell and he just stares and gives me the stink eye.  If I yell loud enough to look like a fool to anyone who is watching, he dives off the deck but is back in 2 minutes daring me to do it again.  One night I chased him no less than ten times before I gave up and just went to bed.  Why didn’t I just go out and take in those feeders?  See above. (Afraid to go on my back deck at night)

I’ve scoured the Internet to figure out ways to deter this very tenacious creature.  One site said that raccoons dislike mint.  So I set out pots of mint all over the deck.  He just knocked some over and basically ignored the stuff—epic fail.

It is illegal to relocate animals so that is not an option.  It is perfectly legal to trap and kill raccoons, but since I can’t even squash a bug, that is also not a viable option for me.

So as my last resort I heard about predator urine.  Yes, I did say urine.  I bet you didn’t know that they sell everything from coyote to mountain lion urine. Predator urine gives the illusion that there is a predator in the area. Supposedly the animal or animals you are trying to deter will move on if they fear a predator. 

I never thought I would buy water, but I did.  And I really never thought I would buy urine, but, I, did!  I didn’t buy the liquid but the pelleted version of coyote urine.  Actually instead of pellets it looks like the contents of litter box.  It’s a container of foul smelling dirt.  Resist the temptation to smell it or you will never be able to forget that odor.  I swear it burns the sinuses.

Anyway I sprinkled the stuff liberally all around the hummingbird feeder and left it out for the night.  Come morning (after lots of raccoon nightmares) I looked out and the feeder was empty of the nectar.  This raccoon stepped all in the predator urine soaked dirt without a care in the world. (Probably dancing in the moonlight) So what do I do from here?  Stop feeding the birds?  Never go out on my deck at night?  Take down birdhouses?  Or…I can still keep spreading the urine stuff all around and hope he takes a hint.  The bottle says sometimes it takes 2-3 weeks to take effect so I’ll keep it up for a couple weeks and we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll continue to update this post till I’m far from the madding raccoon or raise the white flag.  Has anyone used predator urine successfully? If you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear your comments. 

Raccoon giving me the eye