turns out we have coons.. when we drove into the driveway the other night our lights caught a little family in the front yard...

but we don\'t have them out back where my veggies are...

apparently medium sized dogs are a good raccoon deterrent:)

TrukMama\'s advice about hot sauce is a good one. I have been using cayenne pepper 90K heat units for a good portion of my animal control needs. I buy it in bulk at P.C.C. and sprinkle it liberally around the places I don\'t want the critters going. The coons stopped visiting the plants in my pond and also stopped climbing the plum tree. With all this rain its an issue, but vigilance is the key. The one sure fire method is coyote urine. It comes in a spray bottle at the Outdoor Emporium on 4th ave S. Raccoons hate it, squirrels hate it and male coyotes love it. So, you may trade one problem for another - \"The King the mice and the cheese\". Good Luck.

Some of my best friends are racoons, I\'ve seen The Great Outdoors over 100 times!

a motion detector sprinkler works best...

When I lived on Alki, many moons ago, the raccoons used to get in the trash can and spread the trash around the yard. We put peppercorns and cayenne pepper in the trash. They opened the bags a couple of times, after that, I could leaves bags outside of the cans and they wouldn\'t touch it.
If you need to spray it, just mixed hot sauce and cayenne with water in a spray bottle.
Worth a try!:)

Screaming worked for me. I was reading in bed and two gigantic raccoons, must have been thirty-five pounders, got up on their hind legs and started clawing at my window screen. Scared the heck out of me. I shrieked, and they fell backward off the window, never to be seen again.

Hmmm, that must be why our little Pomeranian can keep the raccoons at bay. They lurk on the other side of the fence but never seem to cross over, unlike the neighborhood kitty who knows that it can outrun our pooch.

jeff.. thanks for the explanation... it makes sense.

Jan, Thank you, I will try that.
Jo, The problem the Akita\'s had, was their height. The shorter dog faces the raccoons more face to face, and the \'coons advantage of \"grabbing, up underneath\" is lost. And the added mobility gained by being more compact, takes away the other advantage, and puts the \'coons and Shibas on much more equal ground... Might isn\'t always right. ;)

Jeff...

it was them or my dogs.. and when we had troubles i had two 75 pound Akita\'s that weren\'t getting the better end of the turf war with the raccoons...

for some reason, my 30 lb shibas back them down and keep them out of the yard with no problem.

go figure...

Jeff...go up in the menu at the top of the page, and click on \"contact\"...that will let you write to TR :)

Bulldog, I had to provide an e-mail address to sign up... I\'m new here, and not familiar with this format. I don\'t know how to contact TR?
Or make separated paragraphs, or italics... or SMILIES, I love smilies! :)
Being that I do what I do, I\'m hesitant to post my contact info, we could always meet on neutral ground LOL!
If someone official here, knows how to, they are completely welcome to forward my e-mail address to you. ;)

JeffSavoie: Help! Would you be willing to provide your email address directly to our awesome blog editor, TR and have her forward it to me? (She\'s got my email address.) Thanks!

Now that\'s some excellent and highly entertaining information Jeff. Thanks! :)

Alright, I\'ve been holding back, because I don\'t want to end up the target of rude comments...
But, I\'m a licensed Nuisance Wildlife Control Operator (NWCO), \"the critter guy\", and raccoons are pretty much my specialty.
Glocson, you say you don\'t want to hurt them, but consider using powerful drugs? Oh well, you\'re not the first person I\'ve talked to that was cracking under the stress of living with wild animals. ;)
Jen, Mothballs are not something I\'d want around my house or my family, and as stated often times don\'t repel raccoons.
Bulldog, if I can be of any assistance, let me know.
Jo, Read the cautions on a bottle of ammonia... would you squirt it at your dog?
It\'s not right to do so to a wild animal either, wildlife solutions need to be as painless and as unlikely to cause harm as possible, up to and including humane euthanization standards.
My experience has been that city critters, are no more likely to be \"inedible\" than their country cousins. I mean we eat chickens, and even a city raccoon ain\'t that nasty... I was practically raised on chickens, that were raised on table scraps, and dirt scratch.
If an animal shows no signs of sickness, outward or inward, and is dressed out clean and proper, it should be okay.
Flowerpetal, growin\' up, we took care of more than just one a year. :)
Jan, think pork, a little redder and a lot greasier, excellent BBQ fare.
The modern market for healthy, made in America, pet food, uses much of the by products of the fur and nuisance control industries, like raccoon meat (but the sale of (raw) nuisance caught products, is strictly prohibited in Washington State).
UrbanFabulous, coyote urine, isn\'t all that effective in this environment. The raccoon needs to fear the coyote, and in the city they have a very amicable relationship.
It\'s too much work to kill a raccoon, when there\'s easier pickin\'s. City coyotes, truth be known, are highly herbiforous (sic), with much of their diet, like the raccoons, made up of fruits and cats. I mean fruits and vegetables.
More often a boar raccoon\'s urine is used for \"eviction fluid\", mother raccoons will quickly evacuated kits, and only the big bruiser of the neighborhood won\'t be afraid... he\'ll come out lookin\' for a fight (and my day gets exciting!).
Animals have many \"triggers\" and they don\'t all work, every time, in every place.

I\'ve had possum. but not raccoon.. and flowerpetal is right.. never city raccoon.

i know, West Seattle garbage is gourmet garbage... sort of like having them pre-stuffed for you, but....

the sprinklers didn\'t work for us.. nor did a water pistol until we added ammonia...

i would have loved to try the air horn. had they been in the house, i am pretty sure i would have warned neighbors and done so.

they are destructive critters.

I bought a Sears crock pot at a garage sale years ago and it came with a cook book. No kidding it had recipes for possum and racoon in the cookbook.

Try a motion detector sprinkler. They won\'t like it when it comes on. Check hardware stores for more info. Works for most larger than a mouse animals. Also pepper spray area\'s where area\'s desired.

Go buy some coyote urine and spray it around your yard.

flowerpetal...I stand corrected :) Davy Crockett had a \'coon skin cap...guess they had to do something with the rest of the body, huh. Now, I\'m being tongue in cheek, and not saying that to be insensitive to anyone. How does one prepare raccoon, and ..OK..I know I shouldn\'t ask this..but...does it taste like chicken? (Oh, please forgive me, everyone)

Well I really wasn\'t joking, raccoon is good eating. But those days are in the past and I would never have eaten a City \'coon.

My sister had her palm pilot (before Blackberries) snatched away from a picnic on a boardwalk. And I used to have a cat named Sparkle who was raised in a household with a pet raccoon. Sparkle too learned how to turn on the bathroom faucet; but for amusement, not for food washing. It would have been alright had she learned to turn it off after her play time.

Despite their reputation, racoons are a bad combination of stupid and strong. A college room-mate had one as a family pet (not that smart an idea) and it was amazing how much that one \'coon could tear up, especially if he thought there was something edible nearby. I encourage you to give all of the non-lethal methods a try before they smell food they want behind something fragile like a door.

glocson - one of the two raccoons that got into my house was literally ricocheting off of the furniture in panic. I\'m not sure introducing hallucinogenics into your situation is a great idea... :-)

I was thinking of putting some LSD or peyote into a water bowl for them......

Patrick - how much did your neighbors love you after that??? :-)

We had one in the attic around the 4th of July. Over at Big 5 you can buy an boater\'s air horn for about $10 that puts out a 120 db screaming whistle. I put on some ear plugs and blew a few blasts over two days and that was that.

Please don\'t put out mothballs - it will just keep you and/or your neighbors in your respective houses - with no windows or door open to prevent the smell from coming in.

I didn\'t find it funny.

JT....(I know this is an assumption on my part)....flowerpetal ----------> joking :)

Some things to check in your yard....
Are there any open water or food sources available to them?
Are your garbage cans secure?
If these questions are no\'s I found these website for a natural deterent.
http://www.deerout.com/critter/index.htm
http://www.critter-repellent.com/raccoon/how-to-get-rid-of-raccoons.php

Has anyone ever tried bitter apple spray (the kind for dogs?) Someone told me a while back that worked. I\'ve also heard people have had luck with motion activated sprinklers, like these:
http://www.safepetproducts.com/pilot.asp?pg=scarecrow_main

How does \"I don\'t want to hurt them\" translate into roasting them?

Let me know what works. I have one living under my deck and would prefer he find a nice tree somewhere. He wakes up pretty early and wakes me up in Summer time.

Many years ago, before moving to Seattle; we had a remedy for at least one raccoon a year. We had a roasted raccoon on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. But that would only take care of one.

use a water gun with ammonia and water. they really don\'t like it.

I just can\'t get myself to shoot them. I fired at them with an unloaded BB gun and they just stood there. And this was almost point blank....

JenV - I actually tried the mothballs and they didn\'t work a whiff. They kept ME off of the back porch, but didn\'t phase the raccoons at ALL. I had another raccoon break-in last week. Yes, in my HOUSE - and this time, there were TWO of them! They\'re getting really nasty in this neighborhood. I hate to say it, but I think it\'s time for some humane trapping.

moth balls. wont hurt \'em, they don\'t like \'em.

I have posted borderline \"rude\" comments on here before. However I have a tiny tiny soft spot in my heart for these guys. Can I put out something they hate like vinegar or ammonia or something to get them out from under my eaves? I don\'t want to use a BB gun but there waste/excrement on my roof is just nasty! Plus they scare me when I\'m watering late and they come out of the bushes. Please let me know. THANK\'S!