Raccoons are Everywhere!

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been reminded about the large population of raccoons we share our yard with.  Normally they will get into the trash every now and then, but otherwise, they don’t make themselves too obvious or cause too many problems.  This year, though, is a different story.

On the Fourth of July, we went outside to get ready for our cookout with the family and found a baby raccoon asleep on the sidewalk between the house and the deck.

He was a cute little guy, but he didn’t seem quite right.  We aren’t sure if it was just because he’s nocturnal and we had the nerve to wake in at 9:00 in the morning, but he was none too alert and sure had problems waking up enough to relocate.  Normally we might have left him alone, but since we were having people over, we didn’t want him to decide to get aggressive once everyone showed up, so we got out a broom and nudged him awake in an attempt to convince him to relocate.  He started to get up and move away, but when we came back a few minutes later, we found him less than 3 feet away, half under the deck, asleep again.

We again prodded him with the broom to wake him up enough that he relocated himself completely under the deck, which we thought should be good enough, but shortly after people started to arrive for the cookout, he made another appearance on the same sidewalk.  Chad and his dad then persuaded him into an empty garbage can and relocated him behind the garage that way.  We aren’t sure if he was just really tired and separated from the rest of the raccoon family or if there was something a little wrong with him – it was just such strange behavior.

Then, a couple of days ago, the rest of the raccoon family attacked the new sod we had installed around the driveway in the front yard.

The sod has been doing pretty good and has taken root in most of the yard, but there are some spots on the east side of the driveway that have stayed so wet that the sod can still be lifted up … and the raccoons sure took advantage of that.  They’ve peeled back corners of the sod before, but never anything like this.  This was more like a whole strip had been torn up.  We did our best to piece it back together, grass side up, but we’re not sure how to prevent this.

We just seem to be overrun with raccoons … they’re everywhere, tearing up the sod, getting into the garbage, peering in the patio doors at night, and napping on sidewalks.  Anyone else similar experience with raccoons?  Have you had any success in getting them to relocate … or at least leave fresh sod alone?

Filed Under: Landscaping

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One thought on “Raccoons are Everywhere!

  1. thatssocute says:

    Where’s its momma?!

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