“There are several missing shingles and we will need to patch the entire southern portion of the roof. Same goes for the area on the other side, though that is not as badly damaged.”
“Shoot!” I thought to myself – yet another unexpected expense from my 100 year old farmhouse. I told him I would have to talk it over with my husband and get back with him about the estimate.
I honestly don’t know what led me to do it – I think it was mostly curiosity, but perhaps intuition is a better adjective. I decided to inspect the damage myself from inside the attic.
One of the reasons I love this house so much is because it is like a maze. There are so many unexpected nooks and crannies and it makes me feel like a little kid exploring a secret world. The attic space is accessible only from a small cut in the bedroom closet, which is then covered with some neatly shaped pieces of Styrofoam. I pulled out my little hello kitty night lamp and pulled the chain to illuminate the room.
I saw him immediately – a scared, teenage sized raccoon staring back at me in the middle of the attic. He quickly scurried out of view.
“Roof leaking my a$$!” I exclaimed. I crawled into the attic space and turned the light-bulb on (which hangs from the middle of the attic – don’t ask me why they put it there). As I examined the floor, it didn’t take long to see all the raccoon feces that were piled in several corners of the. Yuck! The stains on the ceiling were not from rain, they were stains from raccoon urine!
The next day I borrowed a “have a heart trap” and set it in the middle of the attic with some dog food placed in the inside corner. I went downstairs and watched some TV while I waited. It wasn’t long at all before I heard violent thrashing from upstairs. I ran up to the attic and sure enough, I had caught him!
The next challenge: getting him OUT of the attic, through the closet, down the stairs and outside.
That was a good time. The raccoon kept hissing, thrashing and trying to bite my fingers as I climbed out into the closet. Then he decided that that was the moment he really needed to use the restroom. As I hoisted up the crate into the closet, a stream of poo and pee fell out onto my new carpet. I hustled to get him outside and that is when the REALLY bad idea hit me.
I will need to supply you with a little background information before I confess my bad idea: the previous summer I found two raccoon babies lying in the middle of cherry tree road. I made my husband drive back (he was insisting they were dead) and found them to be very much alive. I took them home and enjoyed my summer of raising two little raccoon babies! It was a great summer!
Back to my bad idea – part of me was REALLY hoping this was one of the boys I released last year. I thought that MAYBE, just maybe, he might remember me and we could snuggle one more time (lol – I know, ridiculous). So instead of taking him a distance from the house – I released him right there on the back porch. To my great disappointment, he did not run up my arm and give me a hug. He ran like a cat being chased with a vacuum into the woods. Oh well.
Now it was time to urgently find the spot where he had access to the attic space and block it before he found his way back in. I went back up to the attic and began examining the walls. I found the opening fairly easily – there was a large gap where the roof line met the floor in the corner of the room. The only thing I had with me was the fluffy pick insulation lying between the floor boards.
As I started collecting the material, I noticed a round spot sunken in the insulation – it was an imprint of where he used to sleep – awwww! Again, I was struck by a wave of intuition – there is really no other way to explain it. I started feeling between the gaps of the floor boards and the wall, and just like that, I found something furry! My heart skipped a beat as I extracted four tiny baby raccoons!!! It was the best day ever!!!
I took all the babies with me and devised a plan to get them back to their mother who I shall now refer to as “she” instead of “he.” 😉
I had a brilliant idea of placing them inside a dog house with the trap right at the entrance. This way she would climb in to get the babies, the trap would close and I could move the entire family elsewhere.
This is part of the story where I get accused of stealing a baby lol. I will tell you what happened and you can judge for yourself (though I DID NOT steal that baby!) Since the babies were safely blocked into the dog house by the trap, and my plan was to trap the momma, I didn’t see any harm in “borrowing” a baby for the night. I would simply bring her back the next day, reunite the family and let them all go in the woods together.
Here’s what actually happened: Momma found the babies, but she was far more clever than my device. Instead of walking into the trap to retrieve them, she simply pulled the entire trap out of the dog house and took her babies. Momma and babies were long gone – oops.
Needless to say, I spent another summer raising a baby raccoon;)
Next blog: “The Life of Raccoon Sheila”
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