Photo by Brandon McNeil
This morning a Brooklyn man posted this photo on Reddit, adding, "Don't really expect this kind of thing to happen to me in the middle of Brooklyn." We contacted the poster, Brandon McNeil of Bed-Stuy, who tells us the break-in occurred in October around 11 p.m. Here is his tale, which he lived to tell:
"We had the windows open with screens in. I was in another room when I noticed a loud bang from my bedroom. I thought my cat knocked something off a dresser so I went to see what happened. As I walked into the room my cat was at the door with his back arched, clearly scared. That's when I looked up to see what had happened and saw the intruder.
The raccoon and I looked at each other for a few seconds, and i started to wave my jacket at it. Then I started to yell at it. The raccoon seemed confused and wasn't moving for a while, but eventually turned around and walked back out the window.
Though at that point the raccoon had a taste of domesticity, and McNeil says it immediately climbed the fire escape and attempted to break in the neighbor's apartment. At this point, it's unclear what happened—maybe the raccoon is now living upstairs.
So what do you do if a raccoon breaks in to your apartment? (It's happened before, and it'll happen again.) If this man's story tells us anything, it's probably best to stand your ground, reach for your cell phone for photo documentation that you'll later upload to various social media platforms, and if it's still there reach for your handy raccoon brochure, or call 311.
