Keeping Raccoons Out of Trash
Question: Do you have a way to keep raccoons out of the trash?
J.G.
Lake Sherwood
Answer: To begin with, bag your garbage in plastic bags and be sure pet food is picked up at night. Raccoons love cat and dog food as much as your pets do.
Where I live, we have extra-large garbage cans on wheels that, once loaded down with a week’s worth of garbage, rarely tip over despite the coyotes and dogs that roam the streets. Since the containers are still vulnerable to tipping during the week, though, we keep them behind a fence.
In cities using the smaller 32-gallon trash cans, the battle may be more difficult. In either case, try the following:
First, if you’re using the old-fashioned cans, be sure they’re made of a sturdy metal and have a tightfitting lid. Plastic just doesn’t cut it with tenacious raccoons. Then wire, clamp or tie the lids down to the cans. Try bungee cords, malleable but strong rubber hosing or clamps. You can buy these materials at a hardware store. Be inventive.
If this first step works but the raccoons are still tipping the cans over, the cans may simply be too light. Weigh them down by placing bricks or cinder blocks in the bottom of the cans. On garbage day, though, you’ll need to take the garbage bags out and remove the weights.
Alternately, forget the weights and tie the secured cans to a post cemented into the ground where you store the cans. Untie it and get it to the street on the morning of garbage day.
A last option is to rig a simple, bottom-heavy wood frame into which the cans can stand. Make one side removable to slip the containers in and out. I’ve never seen one for sale commercially, but it should be fairly easy to build. If possible, include lockable wheels so it can be pushed out to the curb and then secured.
Readers who develop a great set of plans for the raccoon-proof trash can frame can mail them to me. Include a name for your invention, and I’ll send it to other readers and include the best design in this column.
If this all sounds like too much trouble and you’re willing to spend a few bucks, a company called McClintock Metal makes bear--and hence, raccoon-proof trash can containers called the Bear-ier. Visit them at https://www.mcclintockmetal.com or phone them toll-free at (800) 350-3588. The Bear-ier is $695 plus shipping. The all-steel enclosure holds two of the old-fashioned 32-gallon cans.
Electromagnetic Devices Are Not Effective
Q: Do those electromagnetic devices that you plug into the wall socket really keep mice away?
L.D.
Los Angeles
A: No. The efficacy of electromagnetic devices designed to ward off a surprisingly wide array of animals has not been supported by any university research, although some companies will tell you their own data looks “promising.”
The theory behind these devices is that they disorient animals, causing them to stop eating, drinking and reproducing. Manufacturers claim that if they don’t starve to death, thereby eliminating your problem, they’ll move out of the electromagnetic field--your home or yard.
Experts have, across the board, dismissed the concept as a useful control technique and have pretty much stopped studying them since it’s fairly well-established there are neither biological nor physical reasons why they should work.
I’ve found a nifty use for my bird-shaped multicolored device, should the marketers decide to approach the concept from a new angle. It makes a handy bookend.
Reader Response
Something caught my eye in your answer about cleaning birdbaths with bleach. You suggested Borax as an alternative disinfectant for the birdbath. What you may not be aware of is that the boron--the important ingredient in Borax--is a potent herbicide. Water concentrations as low as 1 parts per million boron can damage citrus plants, and 2 ppm will damage most plants.
The Borax-type cleaning agents are still quite useful, particularly as they pose no real risk for humans and animals. The risk to plants depends on what the cleaner does with the rinse water.
Regarding your use of diluted bleach, its major flaw may be its greatest value. Hypochlorite, the active ingredient in bleach, is a strong oxidizer in water, which is what makes it so effective in disinfecting. However, dilute solutions of hypochlorite readily decompose or breakdown into oxygen and chloride as harmless as air and table salt.
Thus, with suitable washing, rinsing, and drying times, your birdbath is unlikely to have any significant hypochlorite left over to harm the birds. If you can no longer smell the bleach smell, the hypochlorite is essentially gone.
C.B.
Orange County
Former U.S. Borax employee
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Got critter conflicts? Send your queries to wildlife biologist Andrea Kitay at P.O. Box 2489, Camarillo, CA 93011, or via e-mail to andrea@livingwithwildlife.com.
