hoo boy

[jeliza]

I should remember that unless I am specifically looking for recommendations to limit my next door viewing down to just my neighborhood, because wow. Someone was asking about whether a dark yard at night was an enticement to burglars (vs. all-night floodlights) and a woman said:

I love my sensor lights. They serve as an alert system that notifies me when someone is trespassing. It's my heads up to get armed and do a perimeter check.

Which... wow. I mean, we are a semi-high property crime area because lots of wealthy people (mostly package theft and car prowls, though), but, um. Just um.

Comments

[boonedog]

Maybe she means with a slingshot to go after prowling raccoons?

[shadesofmauve]

Knowing people like that exist freaks me the fuck out. It takes all kinds and all that, but I'm still scared of the kind that's ready to shoot things at a moment's notice, and to do so in defense of *stuff*.

It's probably usually the neighbor's cat or a raccoon.

(Also, I haaaate lights that are on all night. Natural dark, please).

[jeliza]

At our house it's most likely to be coyotes (or maybe coydogs) which I'm guessimg is what she's getting too. Part of why I turned our motion sensor lights off.

[shadesofmauve]

Oh, yeah, coyotes too! And deer.

I have raccoons on the brain because my Odd & Nervous Neighbor recently showed up at my door freaking out about how RACCOONS EXIST and it was apparently MY FAULT because they were OBVIOUSLY stealing my cat food. And there is RACCOON POOP in her yard!

I explained as patiently as possible that raccoons exist, and as far as I was aware they'd never managed to break into my laundry room, so they certainly weren't eating my cat food.

With great forbearance, I did not say "Yup, raccoons shit in the woods." But I was THINKING it.

[jenk]

Wow.

[jeliza]

OMG. Raccoons go wherever they wanna go, whether there is food there or not. (We went to see Pom Poko this past weekend, the Ghibli film about tanukis, which is pretty much the best raccoon movie ever. Which isn't relevant, but it's a Ghibli I hadn't heard of before so I wish to share the shape-changing raccoon joy)

[shadesofmauve]

Thank you for sharing that joy! I hadn't heard of it either, so now I have something new to look up!

[jeliza]

Ghibli is doing these special event showings once a month running basically through their whole catalog:
https://www.fathomevents.com/series/studio-ghibli-fest

(though I expect there to be nationwide trauma in August when people who've just started automatically getting tickets for everything take their kids/themselves to Grave of the Fireflies)