Why One Raccoon Wouldn't Leave This Waltham Porch

WALTHAM, MA — A Waltham resident called Animal Control to report a raccoon that wouldn't leave their back porch this week. When Animal Control Officer Deanna Gualtieri arrived, she found a healthy raccoon curled up. But the furry beast wasn't ill, she said. It was attracted to food nearby.

"Please remember that when you leave your trash sitting outside in plastic bags and not in a secure container, you are sending out a dinner invitation to all creatures, great and small!" Gualteiri posted to the animal control Facebook page. "This includes rats....a major problem in the city."

Unsecured garbage doesn't just attract animals to your home, the animal control officer reminded residents, it attracts animals to the neighborhood.

"The raccoon was sleeping outside the caller's door, but it was the neighbors trash that lured the raccoon onto their shared deck,"she said alongside a picture of a bag of bacon with some bite marks on the bag, which apparently Gualteiri pried from the raccoon's paw.

Maddy Myers said she came home Sunday night around 10 p.m. and found the visitor hanging out on her back porch. When he was still there on Monday morning, she tried banging against her back screen door and shaking a broom at it, but the new friend wouldn't move.

"I was worried he was sick or injured and that's why he wasn't moving, so I eventually called animal control at 10:20 a.m. and they showed up very soon after that," she said.

The raccoon stuck around for about 24 hours, Myers estimates. After the visit from the animal control officer, Myers said she let her neighbors know about the encounter. He was gone when she woke up the following morning, and she hasn't seen him since.

"Hopefully this is the end of the raccoon saga for me. He was very cute but it was a little scary and shocking to run into a wild animal on my porch Sunday night," she told Patch.

Tips for keeping raccoons, coyotes, foxes, bears and, yes, rats, away from your home all include making sure your garbage is wrapped in plastic bags and placed inside sturdy plastic trash barrels with lids.

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).