I admit that this whole "raccoon story" is giving me something fun to write about while I am unable to post essays. This is easy blogging, and I'm enjoying the break while I finish up the book.
Fox Urine and Rush Limbaugh
I couldn’t resist giving you the latest Raccoon news. First, the young raccoons are getting very feisty. They start making a chirpy, hissing kind of noise around 2:30 am. Mom comes in about 4:30 or 5:00. After that they calm down and stay quiet all day, except for occasional exceptions like yesterday morning when one of the young raccoons had a conniption about 8:30 am. It sounded like a fight. I thought, “Great, we’re getting sibling rivalry in the walls now.
I called the Wildlife Rescue people again, and they had nothing helpful to say, which was irritating since I've been following their "mothballs and music" plan of action all along. What the woman said was something like, "Oh well, it really doesn't work that often. They'll probably leave on their own in a month or two anyway."
"Doesn't work that often?" "PROBABLY leave in a month or two?"
The first time I spoke with them they didn't say things like that. They sounded very sure of themselves. There's nothing I hate more than people who sound like experts, but then start backpeddling and singing a different tune.
So yesterday I called these people who specialize in “critter problems,” as they call them. They said they would trap the mother and spray her with “predator scent” which, they admitted, is nothing more than fox urine.
I guess this means there's a whole fox urine harvesting, packaging, and retailing industry. I did not know that.
Anyway, they would also spray the hole in the chimney with fox urine before releasing the mother back into the den. She then gets the smell all over the inside of her den, eventually becoming so frightened that she will abandon the den and move the cubs elsewhere.
Or so they say. I'm rapidly losing faith in wacko schemes involving music, mothballs, bed sheets, or urine.
The “critter problem” woman says this approach works about 50% of the time. If it doesn’t work, they wait until she is taking the cubs out at night and then trap them one at a time over a series of nights. It sometimes takes a week or so to get this done.
Total cost: About $500.
She made her big mistake by telling me everything they do. I have a humane trap. I've already caught an opossom and relocated it. I’m wondering why I can't do all of this myself. Of course, I'll need a bottle of fox urine. At this point, I'm at a loss for how one obtains such an unusual item.
Any ideas?
By the way, I can promise you that Pepe is laughing his ass off at the very idea of me collecting urine and engaging in a complex trapping scheme. He's loving every minute of this, I can promise you.
I haven't given up all hope that the mothballs and music might be wearing her down. I must tell you that the smell of mothballs is overpowering in the chimney. It’s not bad in the house – very faint – but if you put your head near the raccoon hole in the chimney, yikes!
Today I decided to take the irritation factor up a notch. Talk radio. I blasted the raccoons with Rush Limbaugh. We’ll see what happens. From what I’ve read, there is still a chance she might leave just from the noise and mothballs. She may be waiting until the cubs are old enough to be moved.
I hope so. I would like to avoid getting involved with fox urine and the people who sell it.
I'll keep you posted.
rlp
8:45:01 PM 
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