I live in an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, so we're talking side by side houses that have been here for best part of a century. Where I live the lots are narrow (chat to my next door neighbor across the drive as we do dishes under facing windows) but deep.
Squirrels & field mice have always been around. Rats show up when the sewers have construction going on. Skunks have been a nuisance for decades. Bunnies we have in abundance most years (Hassenpfeffer for a crowd from my back yard residents alone) I'm only a few blocks away from the Shaker Lakes, which have a wee bit of parkland around them & I live three blocks from the house I grew up in, so I know the neighborhood well.
Occasionally you'd hear of deer in the Shaker Lakes parkland, but this year we've had an infestation of deer in our yards. Shock has been the major reaction. My next door neighbor spotted the first one while breakfasting on her sunporch, she looked up to see an adult deer peering in the window at her. The neighbor on the other side is in the "Look, look, oh, aren't the baby bambis CUTE!!!!" category. I don't think I satisfied her enthusiasm, as by that time they'd lunched on the hosta plants a friend had lovingly transplanted in the bed along the drive, after extensive weeding. I had a pair of wee fawns just look at me with "duh" expressions when I tried to get them to GO AWAY.
Lord, but I miss having a dog.
Years of listening to friends in remoter places talk about the problems of co-existing with deer really didn't prepare me for it happening here: it just seemed so unlikely. A recent NPR piece about the damage deer do to ecosystems scared me too...the logical result of lots of deer was just something that the folks who encourage their introduction didn't seem to take into account - they decimate species, don't eat the junk plants, and leave nothing but grass and full grown trees in an area- having munched away at all the baby trees and low lying shrubs that are native to an area.
I know you can't shoot 'em in our 'burb.... but I'm wondering if bow hunting is considered legal. There are certainly enough folks around here who might take to venison out of need. Especially if said venison-on-the-hoof dine on their garden produce.
Joanne in the Heights of Cleveland, infested by deer.