We woke up yesterday morning at 4 AM to find a raccoon in the house.

Transcription

1 Raccoon in House by Jerry Codner August 2008 We woke up yesterday morning at 4 AM to find a raccoon in the house. The bedroom door was open and we heard something crash to the floor. Then we heard some more thumping. Damned cat, I said and got up to see what Vega was doing. In the dark I saw what I thought was her silhouette against the window standing on top of the printer table. Then the real cat walked past me out of the bedroom. The figure in the window jumped down behind the bookcase. We have only one cat now as Checkers died suddenly about a month ago. I turned on the light and peered around the back of the bookcase to find a medium sized raccoon looking up at me. There s a raccoon in the house! I said as I ran back into the bedroom. The cat followed me and I closed the door. By the way, Vega is a Maine Coon cat. A raccoon! Patty said. How did he get in? I put my clothes on and went to see. By this time, Rocky was crossing the bed on the other side of the room and hiding under the blanket draped over the edge. The bed sits directly on the floor, so he could not get under it. The skylight just outside the bedroom had been left open and the screen lay on the floor, twisted and with a hole torn in it. Rocky had apparently fallen through the skylight screen. There had been a huge windstorm the night before with gusts to 50 m.p.h. Maybe he was seeking shelter. He could have climbed the grape arbor to get on the roof. Or maybe the wind blew him out of a tree. Meanwhile, Patty got dressed and used a cane to uncover him. He ran into the closet. Somewhere in the flatlands of Freeville lived a critter named Rocky Racooo-oon. One day Rocky went up in the sky-y. Young Rocky tried to fly-y. Rocky Raccoon, fell into the room, Only to find Patty s printer. Rocky had come, then quickly he run. And into the closet did enter. At this point, we began to strategize. I opened the side window and placed some crates so that Rocky could climb and leave anytime he wanted. I also placed a trail of cherry tomatoes from the closet to the crates and on the window sill. Patty added some cat food to the trail as well. We were trying to think like a raccoon. -1-

2 I really think so. I really think so. Patty had to leave for work at 6:30 and wished me luck. Rocky was not interested in the tomatoes, the cat food or in leaving the closet. He stayed there all day, even though I left the house for a couple of hours to do laundry. When I came back, he hadn t moved. I cleared some things out of the closet to make it a less pleasant place to hide, but he stayed put. Maybe because it was daylight. Vega didn t seem to notice him at all and stayed away, usually with me downstairs. I called my friend Noel to ask his advice and he recommended calling an expert. I looked up animal removal in the Yellow Pages and found the one local guy who happens to live about 3 miles away. I called the SPCA first and they recommended the same guy Jack Ryan. Apparently Tom Clancy s hero is doing more mundane work these days. I called Jack and told him about Rocky. He seemed surprised that the skylight had been left open. I finally extracted the fact that he would charge $70 to remove Rocky. I told him I would get back to him. He then complained bitterly about how hard it was to get an animal removal license these days. It was 11 AM when we finished talking. I waited until 2 PM and called Jack again. I left a message. Jack never returned my call. I could have paged him, but his message said to do that only in an emergency. It didn t seem like an emergency, as Rocky did not appear to be rabid. When Patty got home from work around 5 PM, she was disappointed to see that the front window upstairs was still open. I can t believe there is still a raccoon in my house. We decided to try Google. I was going to search for raccoon in house and as soon as I had typed raccoon in, Google provided a list of apparently common searches. The first was raccoon in attic, the second was raccoon in Japanese and the third was raccoon in house. I stuck with my first choice and found several hundred pages on the subject. My first choice was: which included a list of frequently asked questions, such as How did a raccoon get into my house? and Why is a raccoon in my house? Naturally, they all recommend hiring them to get rid of the raccoon. The information was geared toward raccoons that intentionally invade the home. -2-

3 He came in through the bedroom window. And found himself a cover sheet. He said he d always been a dancer. He would move, but he would not leave. We ate dinner and it was dark by 8 PM when we finished. Patty started banging on the ceiling underneath the closet and then went upstairs to find that Rocky was no longer in the closet. She finally found him sitting on the platform above the stairs right above my head as I sat on the couch. Our former cat Checkers used to sit up there and look down on us. We joked that maybe he was the ghost of Checkers. She used a stick to bang on the platform and finally knocked it down. Rocky ran behind the computer desk. We blocked off the closet so he couldn t go back in there. We watched TV and kept checking on him. He stayed behind the desk, peering out when we went upstairs. Patty fell asleep on the couch and I began to think about how to trap him. If I had a canvas bag with a drawstring, I would have tried to lure him into it, but we had nothing like that. At this point, if I were James Thurber, I would explain how the rest of Rocky s family had discovered the open window and the trail of food and had all moved in. Luckily that did not happen. Recalling Wild Kingdom, I made a couple of capture sticks out of a couple of shovels and a couple of large extension cords. While Jim paddles upstream to capture Rocky, Marlin waits below to prepare the transport vehicle. There I would be with a writhing raccoon on the end of a loop with a four foot long handle! Realizing that Rocky could be severely injured, let alone what would happen to me if I could not handle him, that did not happen either. Instead, we put Vega in the bathroom and closed the door, which does not latch. As we were falling asleep in bed with the door closed, Patty said, Vega can get out, you know. I don t think she will, I said. I was wrong. At 4 AM I awoke to a thumping noise. I also had to go bad. I went downstairs and found Vega standing in the partially open door in stalking mode. I turned on all of the lights up and downstairs and began to search. Patty came out and said she had to go, too. I think he s in the bathroom. Oh, no! I have to go! We went downstairs and looked behind the tub where Checkers used to hide during thunderstorms. I lifted the board over the hiding place and there was Rocky! I dropped the board. OK, you go and I ll guard the opening with this pointy stick. Patty went and then I did as I guarded the opening. I closed the door and wedged it shut with a stool. Patty took Vega upstairs and we went back to bed, but I couldn t sleep. -3-

4 I think I should get him out while it s dark. I got dressed and went downstairs. I blocked off the stairs and had all the doors closed so he could only get into the kitchen, living room or dining room. I wedged the front door open and opened the porch door. I turned on the light in the kitchen only and then I went in and removed the cover on his little hiding place. I forced him to the opening with the stick and then backed off to the kitchen. He sat watching me for a while, but I figured he would not leave the bathroom with me watching so I backed around the corner. After a few minutes, I decided to take a stool into the bathroom and chase him out with me standing on it. I climbed up and starting poking into the only corner where he could be hiding, but he did not come out. Finally, I got off the stool and searched the bathroom. He was nowhere to be found. I searched the whole house up and down and was finally faced with a philosophical question. How do you know that there is no raccoon in your house? I was sure he had not gone upstairs and I thought I had made a thorough search downstairs. You d be amazed how many nooks and crannies there are in three rooms. I closed the bathroom door, sure that he was not in there and then tried to catch a half hour of sleep before Patty got up for work. She searched everywhere when she got up. I checked Checkers grave and it was undisturbed. I asked the Centurion guarding it if he had seen anything and he said no. OK, that did not happen either. Perhaps he is gone, whoever he was Nope, he s not. Erica, Jeff and baby Leah came over for dinner tonight and they heard the whole story. When Erica went to use the bathroom, she immediately came out and said, Something is in there. No he s not. He s gone. Well there is something in the wall. Yes, we hear noises from the porch all the time. She proceeded and we finished visiting. As we crawled into bed, I said, Ahhh, a raccoon free night. We slept well and got up early as usual. Patty came back from the bathroom and said, I heard something in the wall. You know there s a space there, right. I did, but I had not wanted to acknowledge that Rocky was still with us. The space was above the cavity in the bathroom that Rocky had hidden in early yesterday morning. There was an access door to the back of the circuit breaker panel which is on the porch. It was behind all of our shelves, towels and drawers in the bathroom wall. -4-

5 After clearing all of the stuff away and unscrewing the shower head so the door could open, I opened the door and there was Rocky, hanging from the back of the breaker panel! He tried to crawl up through a space between the wall and the top shelf that would have put him above the shower. I blocked it off with a board and then proceeded to close off the other rooms and open the front doors. I put a footstool in the shower and, through the slot behind the top shelf, used a pointy stick to encourage Rocky to jump down. He did jump down and ran into his old hiding place, but it was already uncovered and I chased him out. He ran out and into the kitchen. I ran after him, closing the bathroom door behind me and hoping to chase him around through the dining room and living room to the front door. I was too slow. I wanted to see him run out the door, but I didn t. Maybe he did run out or maybe there is still a raccoon in the house. -5-