Wildlife problems

[EBSTEVE]

We will start at Thursday

My wife wakes me up a 5am saying she heard a noise, she said "it was a snoring from under the house" (I know sounds like there has been some crack smoking going on but we are a drug free house). I looked around and there were signs of something under my deck where the access to the crawl space is, but no real signs of anything making its way under. A few days prior I had seen a raccoon in a tree about 30-40' from the deck so I chalked it up a vagrant raccoon and a nice dry place to sleep for the night. Not thinking it was a problem I thought it would be an easy fix so I ran my dog all around the area and prepared to pour water on the raccoon to get rid of it if I heard anything again.

Friday
No signs of anything under the deck and no noises heard.

Saturday
Same as Friday, just a day later.

Today
I am in the shower (after all it is Sunday and it's my day for a shower, needed or not) and my wife walks into the bathroom and she says "I hear a noise again". As most of you can imagine I am pissed and I rinse the soap off and jump into action!
I go to the back door and I can hear the sound is from under the house, not under the deck! I get dressed and think “what now”

There is a small gap on the top of the cover to the crawl space that I noticed the other day, so I decided that it must be a squirrel that could fit thru it. I have counted as many as 10 squirrels in my yard at one time, they are a gang that rome around the neighborhood doing god only knows what. I have no fear knowing it's a squirrel or even 10, might as well be a rat IMO so I get the dog, a 5' chunk of 1" .120 round tubing and just in case them speedy little bastards try to gang up on me, the Glock (Model 27 sub compact .40, nice gun I like it allot).

I pull away the steps that cover the crawlspace entrance and prepare to pull the plywood cover away and commence the squirrel beating and what do I see, eyes, nose and huge claws of a raccoon looking at me like “WTF you doing”. I jump back (slightly slower than my dog) and the raccoon scurries under the house!

After my wife successfully keeps her coffee from coming out of her nose, from watching me jump back like a little girl, she calls animal control and they don't open for another hour and a half! I live in the city on a 1/4 acre lot, my neighbors are not huge Steve fans since I am loud and I seem to tell them things as I see them, I don't do PC well. If I discharge a firearm I will be explaining it to the police and more than likely I will be going to jail and worse yet there could be a family or even an entire community of these freeloading little bastards under there and how much damage would they do in the time between me getting arrested and bail!

Next thought is poison but death stinks after a few days! So I patiently wait for animal control to open splitting my time evenly between antagonizing my dog forcing him into a frenzy so he will bark by the vents, hoping to force the fucker out, and by looking at my Glock and thinking “I have been to jail, it may be worth revisiting”. After much screwing around, that unfortunately did not work, it time to finally talk to a professional.

As it is the “professional” animal control people (city workers) don’t deal with raccoons unless I trap them so after much talk of me shooting them I was referred to my local wildlife preserve places (oh joy, this is going to be as much fun as a kick in the nuts).

The tofu eaters think the happy family will go away themselves when they are ready or that I could trap the mom myself and crawl down and catch the babies with some gloves and a towel (rriiiiight, I am going to stuff myself in a crawl space with a disease infected raccoon family).
After I tell them I am not going under unless I poison them and am 100% sure they are all dead they refer me to a paid assassin (my term, they referred to his as a “nature recovery professional”). He wants $250 to come get a mom and babies out from under my house! Now I like my house and freedom but there is no way I am going to pay some thieving bastard $250 to come get them, back to square one.

As I am thinking about resorting to the M-80 stash in the crawl vents and the dog on the other end I remember I need to see about borrowing a friend’s die for my JD2 bender. When I called him it gave me a chance to clear my head and ponder over the ongoing situation. He got a good laugh out of my misery and he suggests that Harbor Freight has traps! So I go online and look and sure as shit they have traps starting at $25.

I now have a plan, setup the video camera, to get an accurate count of how many actually make there way in and out. Then trap until I have them all, send in the dog if he comes out in one piece I will venture in myself to asses the damage.

More to come as further information is recovered

[dirtchicken]

Just burn the house down. That'll fix them fuzzy bastards!

[YotaRedneckGirl]

I'd be careful getting too close yourself or letting your dog get too close to the raccoon if it's out in the daylight, most often that means that it's rabid.

[EBSTEVE]

Originally Posted by YotaRedneckGirl

I'd be careful getting too close yourself or letting your dog get too close to the raccoon if it's out in the daylight, most often that means that it's rabid.

I am not going anywhere near that disease infested bastard!

[Overbear]

Pussy, its simple...

1)Aquire .22 bolt action rifle or semi auto
2)Cut 2"x12" light aluminum pipe
3)Duct tape said pipe to end of barrel (*NOTE* this is HIGHLY illegal)
4)Place 1-2 stirps of duct tape over end of pipe extention
5)shoot said furry invader with the relitive quiet of a 'bloop tube'

Once again I do not condone or recomend the above action as it violates quite a number of state, and BATFE laws.

[Cork]

pussy, its just a damn coon,

We wrestled a opposum out of a crawl once. that little fella was pissed off.

[fatexassk5]

trap it, then take it to the next county over and let it roll. You can pick one up from lowes for about 35 $ Or you can go down to your local animal control facility and see if they have any to borrow.

[EBSTEVE]

Ok I may be a pussy but I don't want rabies so I am not going near those disease infested little bastards. As for the .22 and the silencer it would be a bad idea being that it's in plain sight of the neighbor and I have spent plenty of time in jail (thought I mentioned that in the above post).

[300sniper]

i have no idea if this really works or not.

i have had a skunk get under our house a few times when we first moved in. some one at work knew some that removes pests. his solution was putting a large hose over the exhaust on his truck and the other end under the house. i guess the exhaust makes them get out.

now i would be concerned that it would just kill them and then i would have to deal with the smell of rotting animals under my house. there is no way for a person to get under my house to remove a dead animal. he said they left before they died but i wasn't brave enough to try it.

[White Shark]

There is a really easy solution to your problem. Look around for your local Coon Hound fanatics. There are a lot of these guys around and they will usually come and trap raccoons for free because they use them to train the younger Coon Hounds.

These guys are heavy into raccoon hunting and invest a lot of time in training and maintaining their dogs. Having an easy to trap raccoon and it's young shouldn't be hard to get one of these guys out to your place.

I'd start by contacting local Coon Hound dog breeders and hunting clubs in the area. They have clubs all over the United States.


..

[Bubba Ray Boudreaux]

That's what you dumbfawk white folk get for encroaching on lands that you have no right to.........................

[EBSTEVE]

Originally Posted by Bubba Ray Boudreaux

That's what you dumbfawk white folk get for encroaching on lands that you have no right to.........................

LOL it's simple if you really think that is true, we had guns and

And on topic I cought my first cat

[whistle pig]

Rod and reel with some 100lb braided line, treble hook, and a piece of meat

[drichard82]

Originally Posted by whistle pig

Rod and reel with some 100lb braided line, treble hook, and a piece of meat

ding..ding..ding.. We have a winner!

[SilverZuk]

Trap it or shoot it.

No one is going to hear, or say anything if you discharge a 22 in your own crawl space.

[Joe_W]

try some mothballs to drive it out from under house, borrow trap from animal control

[SilverZuk]

The car exhaust under the house will do 2 things.
1. Asphyxiate any living thing under the house (doesn not drive them, just puts them to sleep).
2. Make your whole house smell like exhaust fumes.

[PTSchram]

OK, I gotta weigh in on this one.

A coupla years ago, a tenant called me and told me there were chipmunks in the attic. I told him no, they were coons.

I scoured the county for .22 shotshells and finally found them in the Amish hardware store. The woman told me they were bidshot, I told her no, they are 'coon shot. She looked at me really funny and said it wouldn't kill a coon-I said that's right!

I go up in the attic with my trusty .22 loaded with killer coon shot, a trouble light and a hamme rand handful of nails. My plan was to drive a nail in a rafter, hang the light and move forward... Imagine my surprise when I found a half-dozen baby coons and one pissed off momma! Now, I may be a pirate, but I also stop traffic to save baby ducks and I don't think there is anything as cute as a baby coon.

I can't shoot the babies, I can't shoot their momma. I can however make it really uncomfortable for them. Long story short (that included baby coons tumbling out of the attic and catching themselves with their incredibly fawking sharp claws, an even more pissed off momma coon and a really worried and concerned wife) I hung the trouble light up there and they did not like the incessant light and moved out without me having to do much more.

1/2" plywood, 2X4s and big-ass lag screws and even coons can't get in now!

Baby kittens can't hold a candle to the cuteness of baby coons!

[EBSTEVE]

I can not find anyone with coonhounds here, I don't want my house to smell like my garage, the live trap I have set has caught three cats and no raccoons and not a peep out of them!

I would prefer not to kill it / them so I think the light idea may be the best way to go. I think I will just get some halogens and stuff them in the external vents while making a ton of noise at night, trying to make it more comfortable to leave then stay.

That is if the trap does not work today, I am going to try more bait, basically make the fucking thing a picnic!

[Dieselmh]

Sardines. Coons fawkin' love sardines. In fact, if you dribble the juice down to the street, they'll off themselves.

[NVScouter]

.22 short ammo or subsonic is barely audiable under a house. Just dont shoot more than 2-3 times an hour and have the music up. No need for a scilencer. If your neighbors can see get some plywood.

[PONY_DRIVER]

Originally Posted by Overbear

and BATFE laws.

Not to hijack this raccoon hugging fest, but the BATFE is an agency, they can make policies but they do not make laws. That is reserved for the legislative branch of the government, i.e. Congress.

[rockwrangler]

Originally Posted by Overbear

Pussy, its simple...

1)Aquire .22 bolt action rifle or semi auto
2)Cut 2"x12" light aluminum pipe
3)Duct tape said pipe to end of barrel (*NOTE* this is HIGHLY illegal)
4)Place 1-2 stirps of duct tape over end of pipe extention
5)shoot said furry invader with the relitive quiet of a 'bloop tube'

Once again I do not condone or recomend the above action as it violates quite a number of state, and BATFE laws.

Nope!! Not the way to do it.
1) 2 liter coke bottle
2) Roll Black Elect. tape
3) 4 Paper towels

Drink coke! Stuff paper towels into bottle/ Tape bottle to end of .22 find and dispatch cridders. Remove bottle and recycle

[Mo]

Originally Posted by PONY_DRIVER

Not to hijack this raccoon hugging fest, but the BATFE is an agency, they can make policies but they do not make laws. That is reserved for the legislative branch of the government, i.e. Congress.

their "policies" are all but laws.

[PTSchram]

Originally Posted by PONY_DRIVER

Not to hijack this raccoon hugging fest, but the BATFE is an agency, they can make policies but they do not make laws. That is reserved for the legislative branch of the government, i.e. Congress.

Wrong. Administrative agencies write "Regulations" that are used to enforce laws that are written by congress. Thus, their regulations are completely enforceable as they are authorized by the underlying law.

USC is the law.
CFR is/are the regulations.