Rambunctious Raccoons

We officially hate raccoons. Just look at those little beady eyes, gross!

Last night we were rudely awaken at 2:45 a.m. by raccoons. I heard them walking very loudly outside on our balcony. My first reaction is to think that it's a person out there trying to get into our house, but soon realized that a person would not be that loud. These raccoons were knocking into the chairs and railing, making a lot of commotion. They were doing this for about 10 minutes and it didn't seem like they are going to quit so I decided to look out the window and see what they are up to. I turned on the outside light expecting them to run away, but what I found was very much to my surprise. Three little raccoons were getting a running start, then jumping onto the edge of our hammock, holding on and swinging with it. Rather than getting upset at these annoying raccoons I actually thought it was comical. It was very "Over the Hedge." Wild animals were having fun on our human furniture. Ja went outside to scare them far away because he heard them under the balcony playing. One raccoon was outside by the neighbors balcony staring at Ja. Then he started growling at Ja so Ja growled back and the raccoon didn't flinch! They both growled at each other a couple more times but the raccoon didn't back away at all, so Ja threw a tomato plant cage at it. Even though the swinging on the hammock was funny, it wasn't funny when the raccoons decided to keep playing around here for another hour last night!

We have another raccoon story that feeds this hatred of ours. One of the first nights we were here, we heard footsteps on the balcony walking all over the place. Ja was sound asleep but I sure wasn't. I really thought it was a person. Then this person tried to get into our house through the sliding glass door! I woke Ja up so he could find this person and scare him away. He opened the curtains and didn't see anyone until he looked down. It was two raccoons mating against the screen door! Ja flashed a light in their faces and they looked up at him like "Oh no, we got caught!" He went outside and scared them away by moving furniture around and barking at them. It took me another hour to fall back asleep because I was scared at any noise I heard outside.

The third experience was probably the most annoying. One night we woke up to the sound of some animal chewing/scratching inside the wall behind our bed. It reminded me of the sound of my old hamster would make as he was chewing through his plastic cage, but much louder. We initially thought it was a rat but as it got louder and louder we concluded that it had to be something larger. This also lasted almost an hour and it moved around the room inside the wall. We tried hitting the wall to scare it but these things aren't scared of people! Now we figure they get into the wall under the balcony in some sort of hole. I really hope that one night it doesn't break through.

Any ideas on how to get rid of these annoying animals?

Or do you have any animal stories you would like to share?