Residents at a condo complex in Arlington County say they are under siege by raccoons and have been for a couple of years.
The residents said they have complained to the Arlington Condominium Association with no results, and they believe someone is feeding the raccoons
“It’s been a few years now that we’ve had a problem with someone feeding the raccoons or feeding the animals. We don’t which one it is,” resident Irma Wheeler told News4’s Shomari Stone.
She said some neighbors said they were trying to feed the birds and would stop, but the problem remains.
“We have gone to the office,” Wheeler said. “We have gone to the Humane Society up the street. We have tried everything. Someone keeps on feeding them, and they keep coming out. They’re growing. I mean they’ve got babies. We have gone two years through this.”
Residents of two units with patios in the back of the complex don’t go out there after dark.
“We can’t sit outside on our balcony without them literally coming up on to the fence, into our space,” resident Carlos Berio told Stone.
He worries about his dogs getting rabies if they get out after dark and said there have been instances of cats disappearing in the past couple of years.
“We have a pet; we can’t let him out, and you can’t even have a barbecue,” Wheeler said. “You can’t do anything outside. Once it gets dark, you just got to stay in.”
Wheeler said she went to the office again Thursday and was told they are trying to catch them, but the raccoons are so well fed at the condo that she believes they’re too big for the traps that have been used.
“They’re getting huge,” she said. “They’re going to be bigger than me, soon.”
