A Wyoming homeowner found an unusually loud way to deal with a repeat raccoon intruder: Metallica.
Here's what to know
After a sturdy steel barrier failed to keep the animal out of her chimney, Casper resident Abby Roich placed a speaker near her fireplace and blasted the band in hopes of driving the raccoon back outside, according to Cowboy State Daily.
Roich, Cowboy State Daily's advertising operations coordinator, lives near 12th and Wolcott streets in Casper.
The raccoon tore through the wire covering on her chimney flue to get inside, and when she inspected the damage, she found the mesh bent inward, loose strands curled back, and raccoon hair caught in the wire.
Wildlife officials were unsurprised by the break-in. Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokeswoman Janet Milek acknowledged that raccoons are capable of working around barriers because they "essentially have thumbs that give them dexterous, hand-like front paws."
Because the chimney had apparently drawn raccoons before, including during the previous owners' time there, Roich had thought the wire covering had solved the problem.
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It had not, and the animal forced its way in again.
Her next move was to make the space unbearable rather than escalate further.
"Apparently they don't like loud noises," Roich observed. "So this morning, before I went up on the roof, I put a speaker in my fireplace area and just turned on some Metallica as loud as I could and hoped that it would scare it out."
More background
That kind of return visit fits raccoon behavior. Milek told Cowboy State Daily that raccoons remember dependable den sites and often return to them, which may explain why the chimney appealed to them as a protected den site.
Roich's home is in an older, tree-lined section of Casper, and Milek told Cowboy State Daily that a chimney can be "fantastic" for raccoons in colder weather.
It provides elevation, cover, and a buffer from predators and Wyoming wind, while cooler conditions push raccoons to seek winter dens where they may stay longer.
Raccoons also showed up in a downtown hotel parking lot in 2024, and Rock Springs animal control officer Lydia Gomez recounted to Cowboy State Daily that another raccoon latched onto her catch pole and screamed at her.
What can be done?
After letting the music play for a while, Roich followed through on her effort to make the chimney less comfortable.
She went onto the roof, shone a flashlight down the flue, and had friends look from below by opening the damper and checking a shelf where the raccoon might still have been hiding.
Patricia Wyer of Broken Bandit Wildlife Center near Cheyenne said that noise, lights, and similar disturbances can make a den site less inviting and encourage raccoons to move elsewhere.
Roich then tried to block the opening more firmly by cutting a heavy paver to cover the chimney and gluing it in place.
"Hopefully, it's glued down and it's heavy enough that they can't move it," she explained.
Where can I learn more?
Homeowners elsewhere have dealt with raccoons and other wildlife getting a little too comfortable around the house.
• A homeowner's first close-up raccoon encounter escalated when porch visitors tried walking inside.
• Repeated rescues from high places followed after raccoons stole birdseed and got stranded.
• One woman found her home surrounded by 100 raccoons after regular feeding spiraled.
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