Yeah, they are interesting critters - when you're watching a nature show on TV! When they're making a racket in the middle of the night - not so much...
I guy I know has a cat, and a while back, the cat started to loose weight. He seemed to be eating ravenously, because they were filling his food dish continuously. So, they took him to the vet, who could find nothing wrong with him, other than being underfed. They discovered the problem a while later, when the guy went to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get a drink of water. As he was standing at the sink, an obviously well-fed racoon came through the cat door, waddled over to the cat's dish and proceeded to gorge himself on cat food.
Well, this guy is a recent immigrant from the UK and wasn't familiar with racoons and didn't know if this bugger was going to attack him or not. So, he climbed up on the countertop like a wee girl and screamed at it until the invader decided that the racket was too disturbing to eat and left the house.