Raccoons ransack White Rock home while owner was away
Credit to Author: Gordon McIntyre| Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2019 00:51:39 +0000
There was a party at Ken Rechik’s White Rock home while he was vacationing in Costa Rica. And from the look of things, it was pretty wild.
Only instead of the neighbourhood kids breaking in, it was Sly Cooper, Eddie the Rac, Shifty and their other raccoon friends — a gaze of the Zorro-masked vandals had gained entry to his home through his roof, attic and attached garage.
“I want to bring this to people’s attention,” Rechik said. “The city won’t do anything, the cops won’t do anything. Nobody will help me.
“If it was robbers or home invaders, the police would come and do something. This break-in is all on my coin, and I don’t know what it’s going to cost me.”
Wild-animal damage is excluded from home insurance coverage.
As Rechik spoke, a woman from Surrey House Cleaning went about picking up the mess in his living room, working beside a (ex-)swinging chair the raccoons had pretty much ripped apart.
“I’ve cleaned up after some wild parties, but look at that swing, it is definitely broken,” Elena Cyr said. “I haven’t seen something like this.”
Wooden speaker boxes were eaten through, crystal goblets from his wedding smashed to the floor. Ceramic fish were pulverized, a five-foot cactus knocked over, framed photos thrown off the top of a dresser, toilet paper strewn about, and one corner of the dining room was soaked in raccoon urine and scat.
The raccoons appear to have lifted a latch on a dining room window to let themselves out after they were through.
Rechik knew it wouldn’t be good news when he received a message on Friday from a neighbour who was keeping an eye on his house while he was in Costa Rica.
“I thought, ‘Oh oh, this won’t be good,’” he said. Told it looked like burglars had vandalized his place, he hopped on the first plane home, a journey through Toronto to Vancouver.
He touched down at YVR at 1 a.m. Sunday and got home around 2 a.m., only to find he had been locked out, the neighbour having taken a key to the house that Rechik kept in his garage.
“I’m sitting in my truck thinking, ‘This is ironic, raccoons can get into my house, but I can’t,’” he said. “I can laugh about it now, but it wasn’t funny at 2 a.m.”
A little after 3 a.m., lights came on across the street, Rechik retrieved his key, went inside and saw the damage.
The province’s website on how to manage raccoon pests isn’t very helpful. Rechik had previously hired an exterminator who told him he had scared the raccoons off for good.
“Are you kidding?” Rechik said. “Anyway, there’s worse things that could’ve happened. It could have been a home invasion. They didn’t hurt me.”
Had he caught the critters in the act, he was within his rights to put them, and him, out of their misery, said Jack Trudgian, a provincial conservation officer based in Surrey.
“If they cause property damage, they can be killed by the homeowner,” Trudgian said.
Or you can trap them and take them to Crown land to be released, he said.