TLDR; We discovered poop on our front deck area and are not sure if it’s human or animal and/or if it’s been placed there on purpose. Please help with identification and your 2 cents on what’s going on here.
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We live in a semi-rural/outer burbs part of Japan and this morning discovered a pile of poop on our front deck area.
The deck is fairly easy to access, but still a risky move any time of day or night to be trespassing. You’d have to walk up the long driveway activating sensor lights, then up a flight of outdoor stairs, then step over or move a portable gate (returning it to its original position) to place the poop where we found it. There’d also be a high chance of being heard from the lounge room directly inside from the deck or my son’s bedroom on the floor above where I am in and out of at all hours of the night.
Looking at it and the photos, I think it’s animal poop… and it seems like it’s fresh out of the butt, not picked up from somewhere else and relocated to our front deck. But there are no other signs of disturbance on the deck, nothing out of place, plants not knocked over, portable gate not moved.
But the size of the poop is what’s getting me. I’m fairly sure it’s too big to be a cat or a tanuki, or any kind of animal that could quietly climb over the fences and into the deck area instead via the “normal” route as described.
We googled images of other animal poop, and it has some resemblance to the asiatic black bear or a dog, but how on earth either of those animals could get to the deck without leaving any other trace isn’t super plausible in my opinion.
We are worried it maybe a case of someone taking issue with our presence as foreigners in the neighborhood and going above and beyond in terms of relocating and rearranging shit in such a way that it looks butt-fresh and not smooshed in the process of doing so.
So, with all the above information in mind, I’d love to know what others think is going on here. Are we being visited by very stealthy and agile bears or dogs? Is it just tanuki poop? Should we get security cameras?
Fully aware this post may attract some snark for whatever reason, have at it!
Poop photos in the comments.
by AvocadoGodzillaMask