A raccoon has decided to move into my roof. Well the overhang of my porch anyway. I didn’t believe it at first when my neighbor text me telling me she saw a fury friend make its way in there. I so very much wanted it to be untrue that I avoided it for a few days telling myself that I hadn’t heard anything, so she must have been mistaken. I have a solar powered outdoor camera, but it hasn’t been picking anything up. It actually hasn’t been working which I attributed to it being very cloudy and rainy here for the past month.
Then one morning around 3:30 I had to walk my dog and what do I see, but a raccoon butt making its way into the overhang of my porch. At first I thought, “How cute is that fury little butt!” Then I woke up a bit (remember it was 3:30), and I realized a woodland creature has decided to set up shop as my immediate neighbor! This is completely out of my wheel house. I have, and I can’t stress this enough, NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. Can I get an adult over here?
I took a breath and picked up the phone to call someone, but then I remembered the time and instead decided to wait until people were actually awake. Normally for things like this I would call my dad, but he hates that I bought my particular house due to it being built in the very early 1900’s. Naturally anytime I have a house situation I tell him everything is working normally until its fixed and then I tell him what the problem was. When my sump pump had failed a few days earlier I told him after I had fixed it. (He was impressed.)
When the sun was fully out I called my mom. She answered and I instantly started crying. “A raccoooooon is in my rooooof.” I wailed. “You have to get it out before it has babies.” She responded.
Babies. BABIES. I hadn’t even thought of babies. I hung up and instantly called the first number to pop up on google. Should I have shopped around? Yes, but at the time all I could think of was babies being born in my roof. The only question I asked this number was, “You don’t hurt them, right?” To which they said they just move them. We agreed they would come out and handle the situation.
The man who came out was very nice and reassuring. However, he kept mentioning in “Old Houses” and my brow must have furrowed so much that winkles started to form. He got the message and stopped. He then proceeded to show me how the raccoon made “cute” little paw prints up the side of my old house. He pointed out that it looked as if the raccoon was using the camera I had installed outside as a jumping off point into the overhang. This would also explain why the camera isn’t working. Not because it’s not picking up sun, but because this ninja critter has created a fail safe for herself. Respect.
Before he left he handed me the estimate of the service. I shouldn’t have jumped the gun and gone with the first number on google, but all I could think of having an unwelcome raccoon for a roommate. So before any money was exchanged I thought about it and said, “No thank you.” I decided I could do this myself. All I need is a trap.
So it’s been about a day and the raccoon is still my roommate. I am hoping she’s not a mom just yet. If I trap her and not the babies I will have to adopt them and frankly I don’t have time to take care of a litter.
This whole situation has shed some light onto how I handle things. I realize I tend to react before actually taking a step back and assessing the situation. I’m hoping that in the future I will be more mindful of this. From now on I will do more research. I’m sure there are people out there who know how to get rid of animals that have taken residency in their homes no problem.
How hard can this be?
I'm Unsupervised 