My War with the Raccoons

A letter from the front

My good friend,

I’ve been at war with the raccoons. It’s been at least a year, but I can’t be sure. I’ve lost track of time. I no longer count the days or weeks or months because what was once used to measure progress can now be used as evidence of my failure. Any wins were just temporary delusions, that I outsmarted them, that I was capable of doing so. Yet, on almost a daily basis, I’m reminded of their cold, territorial cunning. What I’ve done to Mother Nature to deserve this torture, I cannot say, but I’m convinced she’s cursed me.

It all started with a simple dream of outfitting our rooftop patio with some seating and a pergola. Just a simple desire to entertain our friends and family with libations while taking in the view of the neighbourhood and the city around us.

The dream quickly became a nightmare. The raccoons had their own desires. We prepped the area for the winter, not knowing what was planned for us. The following spring came with the discovery that they had moved in and claimed the rooftop as their own. They’d made nests of the furniture, clumps of the matted fur stuck to the cushions we’d not yet had a chance to use or break in. We scared them off not knowing they’d return and defecate on what we thought we’d reclaimed. Not only had the rooftop become their home, but it had also become their latrine.

Raccoon feces carries roundworm eggs, a parasite that can invade the eyes and organs and the brain if somehow ingested. No product can disinfect it, or kill the eggs, not even bleach. It can even survive multiple winters. Only extreme heat from a propane torch or boiling water will do. I armed myself with kettles, a face mask and thick gloves to clean the detritus, struggling to sleep for fear that the parasite had somehow invaded my body and was causing my brain to swell. Any headache came with the paranoia that my brain had become food.

No matter how many times I cleaned and risked my health, the raccoons came back. With every poo I removed, they returned to double and triple their output. The patio had become a litter box that could never be cleaned. So I brought in the generals, wisened experts who could help me take control and regain the vital territory. They set traps, relocated the prisoners of war, but we discovered soon after that others had made a nest beneath the deck, perilously close to the roof the patio sat on, threatening to burrow into our home

This couldn’t stand. They’d already taken our rooftop. I couldn’t bear to wake up one morning and find them using the espresso machine, to discover they moved in and were watching Netflix, sprawled out in our living room. I would not become a prisoner in my own home.

More traps were set. Slowly but surely they were evicted from under the deck. It was then reinforced with wire to ensure they could no longer burrow beneath it. The land we lost had once again became ours. But the victory was short lived. They took shelter on the neighbour’s roof. Ours once again became the latrine. I installed plastic spikes along the roof and its fence like barbed wire, hoping it would deter them. It didn’t. They used it to scratch an itch like a cat rubbing itself against your fingers.

I used to have a home office in the loft. It looked out onto the roof. I couldn’t bear to be there anymore. I couldn’t bear catching a glimpse of my invaders and the havoc they were wreaking. I scared them off countless times but they always returned. Eventually they stopped getting scared, shuffling away slowly, looking back at me as if daring me to try and stop them, taunting me that there was nothing I could do to reclaim what was lost. Maybe they were never scared. Maybe it was all an act to fool me into thinking there was even a chance that I could win this war.

Winter came. I moved my office into another room in the house, a smaller room, out of desperation to get away from the roof, with the hope that maybe, just maybe, I could ignore the issue. I dreamt that there would be a pause in hostilities, that the cold would force the invaders to hunker down and take shelter, that I would have a moment to catch my breath like Christmas in No Man’s Land. And for a while, it was quiet. I could finally hear myself think.

Then the chittering began. There’s an old, disused chimney runs through the exposed brick wall in my new office. The raccoons had found their new shelter, and they had babies. Not only could I hear them scratching as they climbed in and out, but I had no choice but to listen as the babies squealed for their mother to return and feed them. I couldn’t escape. No matter where I went the raccoons followed.

Is it the house they want? My soul? What is it they’re hoping to claim? What price can I pay to be left alone and for them to abandon their campaign? I wonder if this is some kind of karmic outcome, if there is something I’ve done to deserve this mammalian punishment. To be haunted by these crafty animals who’ve weaselled their way not just onto my patio and into my chimney but also into my every waking thought.

I built an alliance with wildlife control. Via their surveillance we confirmed the raccoons and their babies had indeed taken the chimney. Nothing could be done until the babies were of age to leave the nest. They couldn’t be disturbed, not to mention, the entrance to the chimney was too small for any human to enter. Months would past amidst their screeching and squabbling, surely conversations they were having about next steps. Their mother must be training them. Unfortunately I can’t speak raccoon.

Eventually the younglings did leave the nest. The chimney was covered so they could never return, so that even if nostalgia beckoned they couldn’t ever come back to the place they once called home. It felt like a victory, and it was, but alas it was momentary. Though they have now found some place beneath our garden shed, they continue to use the rooftop as their washroom. Any thoughts that I could reclaim this territory and finally use it have been demolished. My parade, one that was already on its last legs, with floats cobbled together from years prior, has indeed been rained on.

My neighbour tells me the raccoons must have a source of food nearby. But our garbage and compost bins are protected. There are no signs of forced entry. And yet the raccoons return night after night. It’s illegal to kill them. But I fantasize about chasing after one, grabbing it by the throat and hurtling it into someone else’s yard, seeing it spiral in the air, end over end, until it disappears from view. I’m not the man I once was. I long for blood where before I sought peace. Playing by the rules has only brought me pain and suffering. My laughter is no longer of joy, but of hysteria.

Then I discovered the unimaginable. The horrors these beasts are truly capable of. One night, turning off the TV and getting ready to leave the living room for bed, I saw movement in the darkness. I was spooked that it might be an intruder, someone lingering in the night until my partner and I fell asleep, waiting to break in. I turned on a light in our backyard. A raccoon was perched over something, gnawing at it, reducing it to shreds. It wasn’t someone’s discarded fast food or pillaged trash, but the remnants of a crow’s wing, bits of the bird’s body still clinging to the appendage. I had discovered the raccoons’ source of food. The next night it had claimed a squirrel, scattering its fleshy bits across our backyard and in the garden. The carnage of this conflict knows no bounds.

Where is my Oppenheimer? What weapon can save me from this war before it claims not just my patio and backyard but the last remnants of my sanity? I’m tempted to let it all burn, to leave nothing in my wake but scorched earth, but like cockroaches, the raccoons will claim and take shelter in the ruins. I will be without a home and they will have won.

I’m told there are worse problems these days. I know these people are right. But my emotional, reactive state can’t believe them. Even as I write these words I can imagine the piles of feces the raccoons have left and are leaving for me. My blood boils. It’s hard for me to think of anything else, to do anything else without being distracted by this endless war. I’m teetering on the edge.

Meanwhile, a new enemy has entered the fray. A rat seems to have found its way into one of our walls. These we can kill. Holes can be plugged. Both have been done. And yet it returns. I can hear it gnawing at the wood to wear down its incisors.

If indeed the end is coming, as many say and warn, I am ready for it. I open my arms to it with abandon.

- Keith