Keep your distance. They can be nasty. Living a chip shot away from Bethpage Park, I've had lots of experience with them over the years. I have an 1100 square foot deck in my yard that they took up residence under for the longest time. They would walk right past me when I was back there firing up the grill, and come to the back door along with a stray cat and sit there waiting for food. Sometimes they put there paws up and looked inside the door, or sat on the railing and looked inside the bay window to see if anyone was inside. They even broke in to my attic and had babies in the central air duct. Luckily my insurance company covers damage from raccoons. I had to pay for the exterminator to trap and remove them, but they picked up the tab for the damage to the roof, AC duct, and all new attic insulation.
We keep our garbage in a latched container until the morning of the pick-up now and a neighbor took down a tree on his property that they were nesting in. That seems to have helped.
The last stray feral cat that we would let in the front door to feed every day for a couple of years disappeared last summer and I'm sure they killed him. He would hiss at them when they crossed paths in the yard, but then outrun them. I think they got him on a slow day.
Don't leave anything that they might consider to be edible out ever. Once they are someplace, they keep coming back. They are cunning little critters and their sharp little paws, with thumbs, can do some real damage and enable them to get in to places you'd never think they could get in.
Best thing to do if he keeps trying to come back is to trap him and re-locate him about 30 miles away.
