{"id":74384,"date":"2025-07-19T03:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T03:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74384\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T03:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T03:42:10","slug":"raccoons-move-into-ballantyne-senior-living-facility-wsoc-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/74384\/","title":{"rendered":"Raccoons move into Ballantyne senior living facility \u2013 WSOC TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE \u2014 The Legacy Heights Senior Living Community in Ballantyne has had some unusual guests lately. <\/p>\n

Channel 9 obtained photos of raccoons roaming the halls last week. One photo shows a critter poking his head through the ceiling. <\/p>\n

Raccoon expert Que Stewart of the Catawba Wildlife Removal<\/a> says they are the last thing that should be around senior citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are several different zoonotic diseases that these animals carry,\u201d Stewart said. <\/p>\n

CMPD animal care and control confirms they responded to the facility twice on July 3. In the morning, they caught one raccoon and the rest ran deep into the attic. That raccoon was released outside. But around 10:30 that night, they had to come back. A raccoon apparently fell from a vent into a guest\u2019s room. That\u2019s when maintenance workers killed it with a broom and put it in a bucket.<\/p>\n

In both cases no one was bitten or scratched and there were no rabies exposures. But Stewart says that\u2019s only one thing to worry about.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only can they affect people with these diseases, but they also defecate, urinate, just like we do that,\u201d he said. \u201cDefecation carries diseases that can cause severe health complications, especially in the elderly.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is unclear if the senior living facility notified residents about the raccoon population. Two emails sent to the media line for the facility did not get responses. A worker for the facility took Channel 9\u2019s phone number down but no one called to follow up.<\/p>\n

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says they have referred this matter to Mecklenburg County DSS. A spokesperson for Mecklenburg County says DSS conducted a site visit Friday in response to a request from the state. Mecklenburg County confirmed the senior living facility hired a pest control company to install cameras and monitor for raccoon activity. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how many, if any, raccoons remain inside. <\/p>\n

WATCH: Waxhaw planning new center to replace gap in library services for seniors and neighbors<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Waxhaw planning new center to replace gap in library services for seniors and neighbors <\/p>\n

\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE \u2014 The Legacy Heights Senior Living Community in Ballantyne has had some unusual guests lately. Channel 9…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[51829,39442,51831,51823,51824,51830,51817,425,51826,51821,50,5312,51827,51825,159,51815,51822,51832,67,132,68,989,51820,51828,51819,51818,51814,51816,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-74384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-channel_9_eyewitness_news","9":"tag-channel_nine","10":"tag-council_on_aging","11":"tag-dinazinski","12":"tag-duncan_mcdonald_house","13":"tag-gina","14":"tag-gina_esposito","15":"tag-local","16":"tag-nancy","17":"tag-nancy_beach","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-parks","20":"tag-parks_and_recs","21":"tag-sainski","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-south_providence_road","24":"tag-south_providence_street","25":"tag-union_county","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-video","30":"tag-walton","31":"tag-waxaw","32":"tag-waxhall_learning_center","33":"tag-waxhall_library","34":"tag-waxhaw","35":"tag-waxhaw_learning_center","36":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114877834432352095","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}