I live in the Annex and, as you might have noticed, the area around campus is slightly overrun with raccoons.

A friend was coming over to watch a movie at around 2 a.m. one night. He ran into a little problem — or rather, six little problems. Outside my door were six fully grown raccoons, hissing and fighting with each other. He had gotten about halfway up my driveway when he was fully surrounded.

We devised a plot in which I hit an umbrella against a metal railing and scared off the raccoons while he made a run up the staircase. In the morning, the amount of raccoon dung outside my place was astonishing. Further, the little guys had carried on with their gang activities well into the night.

Raccoons have made their presence well-known around campus and surrounding areas. Pest Control Toronto cites the large number of parks as the leading cause for our infestation, and they argue that raccoons can be found in attics and basements without the homeowners even knowing. The raccoons, it would seem, have made themselves a little too comfortable in Toronto.