A Toronto woman who caught a raccoon’s high-flying, daredevil stunt on camera has unwittingly become a YouTube hit.

Mavis Knight moved to Toronto from England five years ago. She had never seen a raccoon until last year.

And she certainly had never seen one walk along a hydro wire like it was a tight rope holding onto the phone line above while shuffling its paws along on a separate, lower wire.

When she first witnessed the raccoon, she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"I went like this," she said, rubbing her eyes. "I thought maybe I must be hallucinating or something."

Knight has a complicated relationship with this furry daredevil. For the past year the raccoon has been busy digging up her lawn, peeling shingles off her garage roof and pulling plants from her backyard garden.

But it was how the critter exited her backyard last week that finally won her over.

"When I saw him up there he was proving a point, that he was cleverer than me."

Knight filmed the raccoon's great escape and posted it YouTube where more than 100,000 people have viewed it.

"I never thought it would go all viral as you say, because I just took the shot to prove to my husband that it had actually seen it ride the telephone wires."

Knight now has a new respect for her adversary

In fact, she's given up gardening all together and has decided to surrender her backyard to the raccoon.