When residents tell News 12 they have a pest problem, often times it relates to roaches and rodents. For this Concourse Village resident, the pest problem is much, much bigger.  

Haydee Villanueva showed News 12 video of raccoons along the side of her house. She says a colony of them has taken refuge in the crawlspace between her bedroom window and the building next door.  

“Sometimes they’re fighting and hissing and chattering at each other, so I’d bang on the windows, make noise, but they’re very resilient,” said Villanueva. “Even when I get close to them, they don’t flinch.” 

Villanueva put up her own barbed wire to try and scare away the raccoons, but it hasn’t stopped them from crawling about. She says her pleas to her landlord have fallen on deaf ears.  

“They haven’t done anything, they haven’t spoken to me about it, they haven’t called me about it,” said Villanueva. “Every time it’s at my window… I can’t do anything until it’s gone.” 

The New York State Department of Environment Conservation says it is illegal to trap and relocate raccoons off of a property, and that they should be only handled by nuisance wildlife control operators.  

To keep unwanted critters away, the DEC recommends securing garbage and recycling areas, sealing accessible porches and balconies, and surrounding gardens with an electric fence.