Before we sold our home in Michigan,

I had to deal with raccoons which took residence in attic.

Over a period of one year, I wound up catching three of them.

I didn't catch them. My handyman caught one, and 6 months later

professional wild animal control guy caught two.

The total cost of repairing the damage to the roof, etc. was over

three thousand dollar.

The animal certainly gave me quite a headache, yet earned a respect from me

as far as its intelligence is concerned.

This article highlights its intelligence and points out the fact that

its brain, intelligence, is equal to that of primates.

No wonder I had my hands full.

I had an interesting experience with a raccoon family with three youngsters with their mom.

It was our second house in Brighton, fairly large ranch-type with two chimneys,

one in the family room and another in the completed basement. 

We heard animal murmurs or noises in the basement fire place which must be coming from the chimney.

So we called an animal control man, who diagnosed as raccoon family, and referred to a raccoon catcher,

named "Fighting Joe" or "Joe the fighter". Fighter? like Muhammad Ali or Joe Frasier?

Fighting Joe came in and caught three or four babies, but mother raccoon ran away.

He placed these cute babies in a cardboard box and left it ouside the house, warning me that she could possibly 

make damage in the parts of my house if she lost her babies since she could be ferocious and strong.

That night there was thunderstorm and lightenings all night long and we just hoped she took her babies.

Early in the morning I went out to find that the box was nicely opened and all babies were gone.

We were so glad mother raccoon successfully took her babies.

We have a share of stories to tell about raccoon as well.

Racoon has been around our house as long as I remember.
Racoon is so clever and using their hands as human as
we all know. We always have been extremely careful to
close tight those pots and containers with foods at
rear deck of my house from the raccoon.

My wife has been racoonologist? over the years and she
trapped raccoons whenever she needs and brought them at
least more than 10 miles away before she let them free
in the forest,otherwise, they could come back home
from there. She has done many many times!

She used a raccoon trap to catch when we found raccoon family
(mother and 2 babies) in the fireplace of the swimming pool.

It was so cute to see to confront and play around with my
2 cats(Oscar and Chelsea) through the window of the fireplace.

My 2 kids were praying not to separate mother and babies
when Mom caught them with traps and their praying were
answered at that time.

My wife used this raccoon trap to catch our present cats
one by one, when she decided to adopt these 2 feral cats
to be converted to domestic cats.

My 2 cats.복남,복동 are 8 years old already and they are
real companions to our elderly lives and we thank God
for that.   KJ