Cats, raccoons, and the guys upstairs

Hi all,

I wanted to share my frustration at a situation that's happening with the apartment upstairs. A few young guys (college age) live there, and they have 2, mostly outdoors, cats. Where I live here in Oregon, we have lots of huge raccoons that travel together in packs at night searching for food. About a month ago, at around 5:00 when my wife was leaving for work, she was startled by about 5 giant raccoons coming down the stairs that lead to the 2 upstairs apartments.

Later, when she returned from work, she knocked on the guys' door to let them know about the raccoons and to suggest that they were there after the cat food that was left out on the porch. The guys seemed concerned and thanked her for the info. Aside from carrying diseases like rabies, raccoons have also been known to attack cats, particularly when challenged/cornered by cats who are protective and territorial of their space. That's actually what prompted me to start keeping Luna in at night, because she was very territorial and would try to chase entire groups of raccoons from the area. Anyway...

Here it is, a month later, and nothing has changed. They still leave dry cat food out on their porch, and for the past few nights, there have been tons of racccoons up there. I can hear them fighting amongst themselves over the food, and knocking things over and occasionally making scary snarling noises. I went out the other night and tried to scare them away, but they only went a few feet away and waited for me to go back in, and then they went right back upstairs.

Meanwhile, I saw one of the guys' cats lurking off to the side, and fortunately stayed out of their way. Later, when the raccoons were gone, I saw that the cat was safe. I was relieved, because after I scared away the raccoons, one of them started snarling in the darkness of the bushes. I don't know if you've ever heard a raccoon snarling, but man, the only thing I can compare it to is the sound a cougar makes when it is at its most fierce.

The next day, I realized that the guys upstairs must have gone out of town for the long weekend, because of the silence from their apartment and the lack of traffic on the staircase. I then understood what was happening: they went out of town for the weekend, and left a big bowl of food on the porch for their cats, which they left outside. The raccoons came and ate the whole weekend's worth of food in one or two nights. I walked upstairs last night, and saw an empty dish, and of course, there were no raccoons last night because there was nothing left to eat.

Meanwhile, I only ever saw one of their 2 cats, and last night she came to my screen patio door and started meowing for me, which she has never done before. We're buddies, by the way, and she always comes running downstairs to see me whenever she hears my door open, and she purrs for about 10 minutes with me and then wants to follow me to my car (and at times, sits in the middle of the parking lot which makes me nervous to leave).

I started to realize that she may be hungry, because all her food was eaten by raccoons, and her idiotic owners left town for 3 days and left her outside to fend for herself. I brought a plate of dry kibble out to her, and she ravenously ate almost the whole thing. She was definitely hungry. Meanwhile, the other cat (Indy) was no where to be seen. I never saw her once all weekend.

Now this morning, the guys must have come back, because I heard one of them whistling for Indy and calling her name. She usually comes running right away when they come home each day, because I guess they get fed some moist food then. Today, though, the guy whistled and called for an hour, on and off, and no Indy. I could then hear him walking all around the complex, whistling and calling for Indy, and I could tell that he was getting worried by the tone of his voice. I've never heard him whistle for more than a minute or two, so this was disturbing to me.

After a weekend of raccoons and hungry abandoned cats, hearing that Indy is apparently missing was very upsetting to me. I hope that she comes home soon. I hope that she's alright. She's the sweetest little (shy) thing.

Why are people so irresponsible with their cats?? It really makes me mad. They left town and left their cats at the mercy of a group of giant raccoons, who ate all their food, and now one of them is missing.

Grrrrrrrr.

Thanks for letting me vent. It's times like this that I'm glad that Luna is an indoor-only cat now.

 

That's just unacceptable behaviour, and I can se why you're frustrated :x If I were you, I'd have a serious talk with these guys, apparently they don't know a thing about having cats...

 

I'd tell the landlord...I'm sure the landlord wouldn't want raccoons around as they can get inside and make a mess.
Also you might want to notifiy wildlife control about the situation.
These guys are creating quite a hazard by doing what they are doing...not only to animals but to people.
some places (like where I live) there's a hefty fine for feeding wildlife and encouraging them to hang around.
Poor kitties....my mother had a cat who used to tangle with raccoons - he had some nasty head wounds from his fights. My mother wouldn't keep him inside and then finally Sam never came home. The cat they have now never goes outside - she finally gets it.
Those poor cats....I bet those guys got a kick out of having the raccoons hanging around in spite of the danger to their cats.

 

i hope both cats are found alive. some people are so stupid...... poor kitties

 

Thanks everyone, and sorry for not giving you an update. Both kitties are fine. I talked to the property manager about the situation, and hopefully he has talked to the guys about leaving the food out. I did see the raccoons a couple of nights ago heading upstairs, but I'm not sure if they found any food there. I think the cats are learning to stay away from the raccoons, at least I hope. They don't seem to be very territorial, which works in their favor when it comes to the raccoons.

My wife and I have fallen in love with one of the cats, the black one, she is the sweetest thing. When she hears us come or go from our apartment, she starts meowing loudly from upstairs and comes running down the steps to greet us. Our own Luna can often be seen in the window, watching all of this, and when the jealousy gets too much to bear, she starts scratching at the door and meowing for us to stop doing that and come inside.

 

im glad to know that both kitties are safe