A few weeks ago I posted that we had a raccoon raiding our trash. We’ve named him Ralph, and he and at least one of his relatives have been visiting our trash cans so regularly that we now refer to them as “Ralph’s buffet.” As I mentioned then, so long as the worst they could do was knock the trash can lid off (and couldn’t scatter the trash everywhere), I was willing to leave them to it. GoddessJ wasn’t happy about it, but she agreed to it.

But this uneasy cease-fire was broken last week, when they managed to knock the can off of the fence and scatter the trash everywhere again. GoddessJ was adamant that something had to be done about it, and now. “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping,” so we headed out to find a solution.

And, oddly enough, we may have actually done so. There’s a kind of trash can that’s apparently designed for this, and we found two representatives of the species and bought them both. They’re small, less than half the size of the usual cans (I wanted to hold out for a larger version, but we couldn’t find one). They’re made of VERY heavy plastic, and the swing-open lids are secured with a latching arrangement that’s easy for humans to open, but not so easy for wildlife. There’s a lip below the lid that should prevent them from chewing it off too.

But the proof is in the pudding. The first night we put one out with kitchen trash in it. The next morning, the whole can was gone. At first we thought someone must have stolen it, but we found it under the patio table, at least ten feet away. Unopened. 🙂

We’ll see how they hold up, but I’m cautiously optimistic.