Guard Your Inflatables: Raccoons Attack South Slope Pool
“Mommy, what happened to our pool?” is not something you want to hear on a Sunday morning at 5:30am.
Unfortunately, it was the exact question that popped out of my son’s mouth about three weeks ago, as he peered out his bedroom window.
After spending countless hours putting up the pool, perfecting the chemicals, and coaxing the filter pump into working, I frantically raced to the door, praying to the gods that the thing was still intact.
It was – sort of. A quick examination of the inflatable ring uncovered two large slashes in the side. Water was everywhere, and in the back of the yard, a trash can had fallen over near the fence.
“The point of escape,” my CSI obsessed mind deduced. “Somebody slashed the pool.”
We called the police, and it wasn’t long before two friendly officers from the 78th Precinct showed up to investigate. With images of marauding vandals dancing through my head, I explained my theory to the policemen, and to their credit, they didn’t laugh out loud.
The two looked carefully at the slash marks, the cover, and the trash can, before concluding that it was raccoons – not knife-wielding criminals – that took out the pool.
Filled with relief (and a significant amount of embarrassment), we thanked the officers for their time, and set out to try and repair the damage.
48 hours, and a lot of Gorilla repair tape later, we were back in business.
Until the raccoon returned less than one week later. This time, we caught him in the act, but the damage had already been done. The pool was slashed, an inner tube was dead, and two bouncy balls were flat.
Refusing to let a raccoon get the better of us, we repaired the pool (seriously, Gorilla repair tape will fix anything), but also reached out to friends for advice on keeping the troublemaker away.
After living near Green-Wood for a number of years, neighbor Chris Schneider has faced his fair share of raccoons, and suggested covering the entire pool with a tarp, and securing it along the base with bricks.
It might not be an attractive option – the pool now looks like something from my days in East Texas – but it certainly is working!
Since we started using the tarp, we’ve had no raccoon attacks, so if it gets us through the summer, I’ll happily become one with my Lone Star roots.
On the off chance he does come back, though, what are some successful tricks you’ve used to keep raccoons away from your backyard inflatables?