Raccoons and Laser Pointers
May 24th, 2011 by PotatoMy neighbour, who lives in the other half of the duplex here, moved out a few days ago. He left a bag of garbage on the front porch. I don’t know what happened to his garbage can (I’m 90% certain the landlord left a can with a locking lid specifically to deter the raccoons for his half), but bags are simply not an acceptable container for food waste in this area, especially not in the summer. So of course, now I’ve got a raccoon outside my front door, frolicking in half a loaf of stale bread. I tried to shoo him away, but apparently I’m not terribly frightening on the other side of the glass. He’d only run as far away as the bottom of the steps, and be back in less than a minute. I don’t really want to risk opening the door to become more menacing, in case I’m not.
So I decided to get creative and try deterring him with my laser pointer. I banged on the door and shooed him off the porch to the steps, then as he was about to put a paw down on the top step, started waving the laser dot in front of him. He seemed to bug out the first time, afraid the porch was protected by an evil glowing raccoon-demon-equivalent or something, and after the second time he went around the side and came across the railing. There, I spun the dot around right where he was planning to land, which stopped him 4 or 5 times from jumping down. But I guess he’s hungry — and he already knows that garbage has food in it — so the little light bug couldn’t keep him off for long. I kept playing with the laser in the hopes that he’d get distracted and chase it like a cat. That’d be fun for me, and also keep him from making more of a mess of the garbage. Unfortunately, though I’ve seen that behaviour on youtube, he quickly lost interest in the laser dot once he figured out it wasn’t a serious threat to his dinner.
May 24th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Did you try wielding the giant butcher knife like you did last time there was a racoon? Not particularly threatening, but maybe he’ll fall over laughing like I did. :P
May 25th, 2011 at 1:26 am
He was outside, the knife’s only for the ones that get in the house :P