My husband and I have had an ADT home security system for 22 years because we’re in a remote area and back when this house was built, we were only the 5th. house in this now thriving subdivision. We’ve added to the system along the way and a little over 2 years ago my husband added Blink outside security cameras all over the place. Not only have people become just plain cruel lately, they have gotten progressively bolder and meaner and the additional security feels, well, more SECURE.
Since adding the outside security system, we haven’t had a break-in intruder but we have seen a lot of local wildlife strolling through the yard at night. There have been herds of deer snacking on our flowering shrubs, rabbits, opossums, raccoons and a cat convention on our porch after sundown almost every night.
Since adding Blink we have a video file of our neighborhood bear checking out our basement door and the door to our basement utility room, our garbage can on the side porch and our front porch furniture. So far, he hasn’t disturbed our garbage like he has some of our neighbors and has done no damage. And we DID find out why the left side of my car is ALWAYS clean and polished in the mornings. Our bear takes the same path every night going to his next stop and his fur cleans off the left side of my car as he passes by it. The bear lanolin apparently gives that side a freshly waxed look. Maybe I should turn the car around every night to get a more even Bear Car Wash.
Way back when BEAR SMITH (we’ve given him our last name for reference purposes only) first showed up we got some cool videos of him walking down our front walkway, I sent them to our local TV news station and they featured our video on NEWS AT 11. Our Willy-installed Blink outside cameras haven’t failed us yet.
Way back at the end of January when snow had turned to ice in our yard, Willy tossed out a couple of 2-week-old biscuits for the birds. Instantly a black cat we’d seen in the neighborhood for months came from nowhere and devoured a biscuit. Being especially fond of cats we knew that they notoriously are not biscuit eaters unless they are pretty hungry. Our neighbors confirmed the little black cat didn’t seem to belong to anyone, was sleeping on different porches at night and scavenging what food he could find or was given. We decided to help by feeding it.
The little black cat was familiar with people but seemed to have been on her own for a while and was really skittish so we began by leaving cat food at the wood pile and gradually moving it closer to the house until we started putting it on the porch. The porch protected the cat from weather and even though we added a box for her to sleep in, she never did. We finally convinced the little hobo that we were only trying to help by providing food and water and were not evil cat abductors selling cat pelts to clothing companies to be used as faux mink coats.
Willy added a CAT CAM to our outside security system above the cat feeding area. When there is motion in front of it the Blink app on Willy’s phone chimes and we can keep up with when our little black hobo comes for a meal. She trusts us enough after 6 months of good cat food, occasional chicken, turkey and tuna leftovers and KFC on Sunday nights to sit on the porch while we put her food on the mat under the CAT CAM. She won’t come close enough to let us touch her … yet … but she waits for us now on the porch to be fed.
Until about a month ago, all had been going well at ‘Smith’s Catville.’ Then in the middle of the night the CAT CAM reported raccoon activity. The HUGE raccoon, fat and fastidious, even washed his hands in the cat water before eating the cat food.
We started taking the food inside at night and that solved the problem for a little while. When the fat raccoon realized there was food available during the day it started showing up at all hours, proving that raccoons aren’t just nocturnal.
While the price of eggs has risen to just under the price of a kidney sold on the black market on the Dark Web, a bag of cat food is right up there in that price category. It became way less than cost efficient to feed the cat, plus a couple neighborhood cats that have homes and families, AND what was starting to look like a 400-pound raccoon, obviously the star of that B-movie series, The Raccoon that Devoured Cleveland. And the Cleveland-devouring raccoon had started bringing a smaller, scraggly-looking raccoon with it, most likely a spouse.
I started chasing them one-at-a-time off the porch with a broom and a yell and Willy started doing the same thing. They ran like crazy … at first. Then they started running off the porch but stoppling in the yard and waiting for the “broom squealers” to leave.
Whichever one of us was on Raccoon Patrol started carrying Willy’s phone with us. When the chime alerted us from the CAT CAM that someone was at the cat bowl, we’d check and if it was Mega ‘Coon, we’d pick up the broom and start running and yelling.
The ‘coon that broke the camel’s back, kinda, was the morning he came and the BLINK alerted me on the phone just as I was getting dressed. Wearing only my ‘dainties’ and a pajama top I grabbed the broom and, giving my best Ninja scream, ran onto the porch and into the yard, broom raised over my head. I chased the fat raccoon until he just stopped, turned around and looked at me. It was like a stand-off at the OK Corral as we both stood frozen waiting for the other to yell, “DRAW!” With broom raised, I let fly a bloodcurdling Ninja scream and the racoon took off into the woods at a speed that would have challenged any competitive runner. SCORE ONE for the semi-naked screaming lady and best wishes to my neighbors that surely hightailed it back inside to the safety of their homes.
I told Willy, as he showed me the embarrassing footage on the Blink security camera chronicling the event, that I believed if I screamed like that again my throat would bleed.
The fat raccoon didn’t come back for a long time but it did come back one final time (so far). Willy was planning to shoot it with a paintball but I didn’t want to hurt it and paintballs leave terrible bruises on people. There was something about that pitiful look it gave me just before my final throat-ripping scream that gave me mixed feelings about the animal and I started understanding that t was just hungry and doing the best it could. I’m a sucker for a hard luck story.
Willy DID, however sit on the porch cradling his BB gun one morning following the return of the raccoon on the CAT CAM. He yelled, it took off and he shot the BB above its head into the trees. The sound of the flying pellet and the obvious noise it made when it hit a nearby tree must have put the fear of the raccoon deity into the soul of that fat fuzzy creature because he hasn’t been back since. We are hopeful.
In case we should mysteriously disappear and seem to have been abducted by aliens, please do tell the authorities that evidence of our disappearance may be found on the videos from our Blink security system. Please, also tell them not to pay too much attention to the crazed, half-naked woman chasing something off the porch with a broom, screaming in tongues or the man cradling a BB gun shooting into the bushes.
Chances are we didn’t get abducted by a band of marauding raccoons but you never know. If that is what the reliable Blink recorded and we’ve been ‘coonnapped,’ maybe our family can sell the movie rights to Paramount or Disney. And we hope they DO share the royalties with our grandson. He may need it to escape the paparazzi when they find out his grandparents starred in the latest version of BLINK! The Raccoon Wars …
heimdalco 