RACCOON - 2 C's for: Clever and Cute...2 O's: for Obessive and Obnoxious

below is a little raccoon story my friend Kirsten wanted to get your advice on.. it's pretty funny - enjoy!

"Does your pet food disappear mysteriously in the night? Is their water bowl muddied? Footprints all over the place? Then you too suffer from the midnight raiders - RACCOONS!

We have been fighting the raccoon battle for a long time now and they have almost beaten us. At first the blighters used to sneak in through the cat flap and get to our dry cat food supply. So we put the dry cat food in a cupboard. They came through the cat flap, opened the door and got the food. So we put a chair against the cupboard. They moved it.

We then decided to lock the stinkers out - so we just put a cross bolt across the back of the cat flap. And guess what? They still managed to get in by bouncing the cat flap door off the bolt and catching it on the upswing (I had images of one raccoon being on flap duty - "alright Rocky mate, your turn to hold the flap tonight"!)

So then we get a fancy lock on our catflap where you have to push a very fiddly lock across to open it...... and STILL they got in!!

Having had enough of it by now my husband got a piece of board and and basically boarded up the cat flap - poor cats just have to stay in or out.

The raccoons have beaten us and on top of that - it wouldn't surprise me at all to find them with a drill gun unscrewing the board and making their own merry way in to raid our pantry for our grand old thanksgiving feast.

Anyone got any ideas how to discourage our night visitors?"

This is Kirsten's desperate call for help and advice... I will forward her any good tips you might have for her.