Stupidest raccoon(s?) in the world + More Late Breaking Stupidity!!!
You'll notice that this was posted at the bizarre hour of 4:00 am. Normally I would be asleep at this hour, but about 30 minutes ago, I was woken by a strange thumping noise. I rolled over, felt around myself and found both the cats sleeping. Not a cat. I got up and checked on Teeny Bun. To my relief I found him asleep, having eaten his fill of the Redzilla Guest House Salad Bar--fresh picked dandelion greens, clover, and lettuce. So I walked the house for a while until I heard a suspicious scuttling, scraping sound outside my office window.
Suddenly I remembered a possible source for the thumping: the brick I had placed on top of the sump pump well cover to block the raccoon-made hole and to weight it down. I grabbed a flashlight and ran outside. Around back, at the east* sump pump, what did I find?
A fucking raccoon, trying to get the cover off the sump pump well. Yes, a raccoon who wanted to make the eleven foot fall to NOTHING but the bottom of a pit. Grendel's mother? Another daredevil moron? Or the same? No way to know.
At any rate, I yelled at her and after a few moments of hesitation, she darted up the stairwell roof, over the garage, and away. I put the cover more firmly on the sump well and piled two big limestone rocks on top of it.
Jumping Christ on a Pogo Stick, what the fuck do those raccoons think is in the bottom of my sump well? There is, as far as I know, and according to my plumber, nothing at the bottom of the well except mud, a ceramic tile, a brand new sump pump, and about three inches of water. Did Grendel's grandpa leave a treasure map showing where all the loot from his days of banditry is buried and it's under my sump well? Did Grendel's mother accidentally drop her wedding ring down there? Does the sump well contain an entrance to Raccoon Paradise?
All I know is--I'm done. This weekend I am building an elaborate, heavy, critter-proof cover for my sump pump wells, possibly with a raccoon trap/alarm/deterrent that is not a rudely awakened me, shouting and waving a flashlight. Because I've had it with that shit. Another raccoon falls into my sump pump well and I'm going to go all Tony Montana on his ass.
Late Breaking Stupidity!!
Just as I was trying to go back to sleep, my phone rang, incoming text message. There was an off-chance it was Hubbicula, so I got up and checked it. It was an official "Campus Alert" from the university, telling me to use caution on campus, because a university student had been found dead...off campus. It also gave the name of the suspect in the case: Adolfo Garcia. Because that's the kind of shit I want to be notified of at 4:30 in the morning, after I've been out frolicking around fighting evil raccoons. Plus, I'm sorry, but this has all gone toooo far. Sure, in the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, where shootings were reported on campus, these cell phone alert systems are good.
They're not good when they're used to report on a single murder that happened off campus. They're not good when used to panic people at 4:30 in the morning. Hello! I was already using caution by trying to be safely asleep in bed! Really, what could possibly be the benefit of this particular alert? Thousands of university students, faculty, and staff woken from sleep to what purpose? Lie awake and worry? Check that their guns are loaded? (Ha! Not in cuddly, liberal Lawrence.) Check that their doors are locked?
There's no indication this is anything but a single murder. No suggestion that this guy is on a killing spree. Certainly no likelihood that he's on campus menacing students, who aren't even on campus at 4:30 in the morning, on a freaking national holiday. So, there you have it: university administrators as stupid as my raccoons.
Comments
Good luck with the anticritter cover.
It's freakin' 45 degrees F. here in Mich. right now. On July 4th?>??!!!
Holy Hell, the world is going down the crapper!!!
Have a nice day, Redz! ;)
Damn raccoons!
Raccoon tip - predator pee. Seriously. Go to a good garden store. They supply various vials of predator critter pee--which seems to be my major focus these days--for purposes of protecting your garden from invaders. They come in small vials which you hang on shrubbery, or a stick in the ground failing that. Make sure you get the right of pee to keep the coons away. They'll typically sell coyote and lynx pee.
I don't even want to thing how they get it.
Maybe you could hire Adolpho to come guard the well.
: )
I was woken one night not long ago by a thump thump as well. The neighbors' dogs were barking like crazy. I thought, is someone trying to break in? I went in the kitchen and a raccoon was raiding the bird feeder outside. She stopped and watched me and I grabbed my camera and got three photos til she shimmied around to the other side of the tree and waited for me to go back to bed.
I really like them, they are intelligent (normally) and resourceful. I can only guess she has hoarded some food in there and wants to get to it. Or maybe she is digging a tunnel to Australia?
I like the Grendel's Mother reference. And yes, I would want to murder anything that wakes me up in the middle of the night.
As for the deterrent...do you think hairless cat pee would work? I mean, sure, it's not lynx pee, but raccoons don't know that. Yeesh, though, you'd think the lingering smell of terrified and confused raccoon from the last dumbass who fell in that sump would scare this one away.
ROFL. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Thanks.
Redz...why don't you hold your shotgun and pee out there? THAT's your predator right there!
My thought is, quit using it as a sump pump and just let all the rotten evil little bass turds fall to their demise.
But maybe there IS hidden treasure down there! Maybe Jimmy Hoffa's buried down there!
fricking raccoons. I hope you ended up getting some sleep.
and the campus alert thing---yeah, especially in off season, off campus, that is pretty ridiculous.
But it just shows we all have problems. Ours is clay soil. When that dries out (which it does every summer) it cracks and moves and the house gets cracks and moves. And no one will insure against subsidence due to clay.
One more summer, then we move. Dear god, please keep our subsidence at bay for one more year...
How about just putting a padlock on the covers?
The pea-brained former owner who put in the foundation had a brilliant notion.
He diverted all the roof drain pipes into a well in the basement -- ran the piping through the new foundation walls, and put a sump pump in the well in the floor that then pumps the rain water up out to the street.
Which all sounds fine, until you realize that rainwater falls during storms.
Ya know, when there are high winds and weather, and the power tends to go out.
Sump pumps run on electricity.
So if the power does out, all the water from the roof runs into the basement, and it doesn't get pumped out.
So I spent a busy weekend with a sledge hammer and tin-cutters, undoing all this, and pretty much succeeded.
Except that I do keep finding new sources of water coming in.
And when water does end up in the basement, nothing happens to it because the sump pump isn't even in the deepest part of the basement.
I rented a house several years ago that had such a basement. I HATED it. the stupid plug in dehumidifier of course burnt its motor out in a couple of months (using a dehumidifier in that basement was like putting a suit on Pam Anderson and trying to make her look intelligent).
I agree. Unless you plan on rerouting a river through your house, why do it?