AAA Gates Wildlife Control

A Gates Wildlife Control fridge magnet was a fixture on my parent's fridge growing up. Twenty-five years ago they called them to remove a family of racoons living in the chimney. Point is, that's how long they've been around.

A quarter century later I'm all grown up and buy a house with a raccoon problem: the previous owner - a sweet old lady who knew better, but couldn't resist for some reason - fed a mother raccoon by leaving cat food out for her. As you might expect, this raccoon haunted the property looking for free handouts. My wife is from Manhattan and subway rats the size of cats don't phase her, but this raccoon did. When I gently shooed the raccoon away, she always sought shelter under the carport: I thought she might have a den down there.

So I knew who to call. Somewhat unsurprisingly, they were extremely busy that time of year (June) and couldn't get somebody out for a couple of weeks. But I knew they were worth the wait.

The technician shows up and determines that the space under the carport is not a den: it was just a convenient hiding place. He said he could dig up and wire off the perimeter of the carport but shrugged. I shrugged too.

No charge for the visit, of course: it was just a consultation. But there's no doubt in my mind that had we a raccoon problem, I would have trusted Gates to take care of it.