I've got a raccoon causing chaos in my backyard every night, and I'm desperate for some smart home automation ideas to get rid of it! It's already walked all over my pool cover (thankfully without falling in), and on separate nights, it's munched on my pool noodles, foam sandals, and even my son's Crocs. Worried about him causing more serious destruction with it's claws.
My current defense involves an outdoor motion sensor triggering a crazy, seizure-inducing flashing scene on my Govee strip lights by the pool. I'm hoping this intense light show will scare it away from the pool ledge when it enters the motion zone.
I also have a Sonos Roam that's always outside connected to power. I'm wondering if I could activate a loud, annoying song or sound file from Spotify upon motion detection to really startle it. Plus, I have Govee and Lifx string lights, and a Ring Spotlight Cam. Is there a way to integrate these? I know the spotlight has a siren.
I'm open to any recommendations or creative ways to use my existing tech to scare this raccoon away or make it feel unwelcome on my property. What are your best ideas?
Earlier this year, I used a high-powered pellet gun (Gamo Whisper .22 ) to kill the one that was messing with the fishpond in my backyard. It did require that I stay up for a couple nights.
Noooooooooooooo... The Marlin Perkins in me is sad.
My neighbor had a fish pond in a large pot that she had to re-stock regularly after a local racoons would clean it out periodically. We used to have racoons around regularly, no longer, I miss them now.
We don't leave any food sources due to city cats and rodents. We live in NYC.
The issue is there's a pizzaria down the block which has a parking lot behind my property. All the way at the end of their driveway, about 5 houses down from my house they have a dumpster.
It's always foraging through it when it's not overflowing or closed. If it's closed, the racoon starts to go through all of our properties looking for food and water. Not sure why he's into foam, but he tears anything foam up. I can't stop him from drinking out of my pool. It's already defecated on my deck and scratched from trex fascia while climbing. It's getting obnoxious.
That's a tough problem, having a constant lure in the dumpster. A friend had a house that backed up on a large parking lot for a shopping center, also w/dumpsters, and animals getting attracted and making noise at all hours and entering his and other neighbors yards was a constant problem for them as well.
Interesting...in California raccoons are one of the least reported rabid animals.
Though included in a list of common vectors, in actual reported cases they were not listed as a vector in the recent Louisiana rabies reports from 2020-2022:
As much as I like adding new devices and creating automations with Hubitat, the all-in-one stand alone motion sensor sprinklers work pretty well for this.
I'm using this Aqua Joe now to scare the neighbor's chickens away from a flower garden.
It has solar recharging and an option for only day/night operations or both. The noise of the sprinkler head scares them as much as water.
I used a humane capture cage trap and released the vermin about 10 miles away from my house. Did the same with a family(needed 2 separate traps for this) of groundhogs that were destroying my yard.
Same here. I suggest not using a firearm of any sort, even a pellet gun, in NYC.
Leaving aside the ethics of it vs. the many potential non-lethal options (though personally, I have a bit of a problem with assuming that every bothersome but nonthreatening raccoon is a rabid threat to human life).
Laws here are different than in NOLA, and there’s so many ways it could go sideways for you if you went down that route (however unlikely).
I used a similar device to this back before home automation at my pool. It had no smarts and was always on. Kept away the geese, but would get me or anyone else who wandered out by the pool when I forgot to turn it off. I think your right about the noise, it scared the crap out of me a few times after I first set it out.
Yup. My location is ideal for always on as it in the front corner of the yard where the chickens come around, that we do not enter it normally.
I just turn it off at the valve if I am mowing or want it off, or if it hot out, I just leave it one when mowing. A simple hose valve could be added at the sprinkler connection to turn it off when needed at the spot. It is not smart, but if I needed it to be I would use a Zigbee valve and a motion sensor and just reuse the sprinkler head.
Main thing is, these types of sprinklers are great animal deterrents, no matter what triggers them.
Actually, putting a Zigbee valve in front of this motion sprinkler would give it a smart disable feature, without needing any rules for the motion detection part.
That works.
One of my relatives tried a "have a heart" trap baited with Cat Food. He didn't catch the racoon but did catch the neighbors cat and a skunk. Both were released un-harmed.
The Marlin Perkins in me is sad.
