Westdale's wildlife is no joke and needs to be respected

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And had I given the phrase more consideration, perhaps the slew of horrors would not have crawled up my doorstep.

Seeing as I am a news writer by habit, I have all intentions to veil my voice with a story—a story mainly of truth, perhaps some craft, but honest in capturing the raw mood of my encounters.

As with all horrors, my story starts on a high note before quickly plummeting into a state of jarring dissonance. It seemed fitting that as the cold April showers transitioned to bring sweet May flowers, the time marked the end of the Winter term. Exams were finally over and the thought of vibrant sunshine and fuzzy summer air eased into my mind. Everything seemed to pass pleasantly for our quartet living in a cozy student home off Sterling Road. Yet little was I prepared for the masked terrors that scurries in the night.

The first incident happened one night after what had been a scorching sunny day. I was brushing my teeth in a dingy basement washroom. It was well past midnight. It was a shy scratch, barely audible as I continued my nighttime routine.

Before long, I could not ignore the scratching sounds anymore. They became deeper in tone and rushed, as if someone was trying scrape through in a hurry.

I called my housemates in a panic—in case it was just one of them making the clatter. No response.

As I nervously crept up the stairs to the main floor, I heard the fierce scratching intensify before turning into a thumping sound. The obscurity of the night overwhelmed anything I could possibly decipher with my eyes. And yet the thumping sound stubbornly persisted.

Disoriented, I waded myself through the darkness as if it were a dense medium—fretful of what lay ahead.

Then abruptly in a cacophonic crash, I observed through the patio door the garbage can which had just been knocked over. Beside it was a plump creature, a phantom of the night, scavenging through the garbage under the dim glow of the sickled crescent.

Masked for burglary, the rampant bandit was unfazed as I attempted to shoo it away. Rather, as if in a darkened trance, the creature crept forward towards me, step by step, eyes gleaming, with only the glass door acting as a barrier between us. After what felt like minutes, the burglar dropped its gaze before finally skittering away into the darkness.

The next morning, I was forced to deal with the aftermath of the previous night. Like a crime scene, littered across the patio were chicken wing carcasses, bags that were ripped apart—its contents indistinguishable, and waves of houseflies that seemed to quiver in the garbage as if aggregating into a single entity.

My encounters with raccoons continued in the weeks which followed. They came back in endless cycles, a gnawing horror still etched into my mind.

As Westdale residential areas are regularly frequented by raccoons and skunks, it is not surprising that I have come across many similar cases. From the backyard raccoon ‘resident’, to students feeding and naming them as pets, to baby racoons falling and getting trapped inside green bins, one thing is clear: we are interacting much too loosely with local wildlife.

Our careless waste disposal habits (I am most definitely guilty of this), likely plays a role in the frequent nighttime intrusions. In retrospect, my attitude (or lack of attitude) towards garbage disposal and my underestimation of wildlife’s cunningness were the chief causes for these terrors.

Leaving garbage in the open and meat products outside in the compost resulted in an irresistible target for raccoons and other animals.

The burden of these interactions is compounded by the alarming fact that Hamilton has become the “epicentre of a raccoon rabies outbreak,” as presented by CBC News earlier this year. With over 108 cases of racoon rabies in Hamilton alone since December, it should be in our best interests to distance ourselves (and pets) from any wildlife.

What was obvious from my first encounter with the masked terror was that what we degraded as garbage to it was a treasure worth lusting for. Let’s do our part to keep this treasure hidden.