Racoons?

How do we get a racoon to stop "visiting' our house every night?
On Sunday morning my DH found poop on the deck and by googling it we determined it was racoon poop. Then Monday my DH got up and 4:30 and he heard something outside and the racoon was on the deck and was trying to get in the sliding door, it had pulled all the weather stripping off and it was scattered over the deck and again had pooped on the deck in the same spot. We really cleaned everything and got rid of the bird feeder but he came back again last night and pooped for a third time in the same spot!!! What gives, there is no food for him to get!!! I am just worried because we have a dog and god knows what kind of viruses/dieseses its carrying around. Any tips that are dog friendly??

Re: Racoons?

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH RACOON POOP. Under the right conditions, if it sits there a while, it can contain racoon roundworm, which is very dangerous to humans.

Make sure no trash cans are around, no food, etc. Google it, to find ways to deter the raccoon from coming back. You should wear gloves, etc when handling the poop. There was a big story on the news about 6 mths ago about the dangers of raccoon feces, sorry to scare you but I just want to alert you.

Raccoons like to defecate in the same spot...so I would put something there that he cannot climb on to keep him off of it. A lso, I would carefully throw BOILING hot water on the spot, to kill off any feces that may be in the wood from where the raccoon pooped. Boilng water is the only way to kill raccoon roundworm eggs, should the raccoon have it and his feces got into the cracks of the deck.

I would also patrol my yard, (DONT KNOW HOW BIG YOUR PROPERTY IS) and carefully see if you find any more raccoon feces. Raccoons like to go to the same spot, they are called Racoon latrines. They will keep going in that spot. Old raccoon feces looks like dried out bark/leaves and it can be very very bad.

If you do find poop, you must be very careful in handling it. Don't use your dog's pooper scooper, etc. Google this and ways to remove it.

Also, you would want to remove it so your dogs don't eat it and ingest possible roundworm eggs. Also, if your dogs aren't on anything for worms, it's good to start that now (such as Interceptor). That way if they did ingest anything, they won't develop the worms themselves or be able to pass them on to you both.

I know all about this b/c I found raccoon poop in my yard around the time the news story came out and I got freaked out.

Message edited 9/29/2009 9:37:21 PM.

Re: Racoons?

Thanks for all the information, I did pour boiling water where it pooped on the deck. Luckily our back yard is very small and we haven't seen poop anywhere but the deck. The other night I sprinkled pepper and red pepper flakes on the spot it was pooping in, and he hasn't been back...so hopefully he will stay away.