One night I was up late reading when I heard some weird noises coming from our font porch. I looked out the window to behold a opossum creating a hole into our attic by separating the beam holding the rain gutter from the house. I ran to grab my baseball bat, but, by the time I got out there, all I saw was a nasty rat-like tail disappearing into the void it had just created. To my displeasure, the opossum had navigated through the hole and into our attic.
For the next few nights we could hear that vile varmint scratching around our attic, particularly over our bedroom. We had a few sleepless nights, and I naively thought it may just leave on its own. Plus, I was too tired to do anything about it. That next day I accessed the attic a few times and I failed to see our unwanted visitor. That is until I heard more scratching over the garage. This meant I knew exactly where it was. I grabbed my flashlight and baseball bat and went back to the attic. As I shined my flashlight on the location over our garage I came to two disheartening conclusions: 1) there was no way to walk to where it was without potentially falling through our ceiling and 2) there were TWO opossums. As I shined my flashlight on them, one of them just stared back at me with its cold, black beady eyes as if to taunt me. They were just too far away for me to do anything and I think they knew it.
It was 10:30 p.m. so I did what seemed like the most logical course of action, I called a professional. After discussing options for opossum extraction, he informed me it would cost $400 to get both of them out. This suddenly was not longer an option. After various google searches, I decided opossum extraction could not be that difficult, and I took it upon myself to rid the attic of our nasty new residents.
The next morning I went to Lowe's and purchased a live animal trap. I also learned that opossums like dry cat food. I proceeded to go home and set the trap in the attic baited with some cat cuisine. I periodically checked the trap and, alas, nothing. Perhaps I overestimated my extraction capabilities and underestimated the opossum's intelligence. I went to bed that night discouraged because the trap was empty and I was probably facing another night of tortuous scratching.
Surprisingly we did not hear any noise that night. The next morning I went to check on the trap and low and behold, I bagged me a opossum! I was very excited. There was something invigorating about catching the opossum. Maybe it was the fact that I came up with a plan that actually worked! As weird as it may sound, I felt like I had accomplished so much that weekend as if I, in some primal, barbarous manner, had completely conquered nature! I was the master of my domicile!
With some help of a friend, we got the cage out of the attic and went to release the captured critter. Our friend brought his family along and his girls named the opossum Smiley. So Smiley and his cage got loaded in my trunk and we drove it to a nice wooded area (many, many miles away from civilization) and released it with the hopes it never finds its way back to our house.
Smiley's release was really eventful! As we opened the cage, Smiley, sensing freedom, took off out of the cage. I wish I could say Smiley's return to nature was efficient. We could not help but laugh as Smiley ran away using a very slow bow-legged waddle. To make matters worse, either Smiley was not paying attention or it just could not see well during the day, but it proceeded to run face-first right into a fence. Although it kept me up at night and was a major inconvenience, I have to thank Smiley for making the release extremely entertaining!
Returning home, I knew I still had one more opossum to catch. I closed up all access points to the attic and reset the trap. After three days we discovered Smiley's friend was not in our attic anymore as I found it trying to get to one of the now inaccessible access points by attempting to climb up the side our our brick house. So, I moved the trap from the attic to the backyard. After catching some squirrels, I'm happy to announce that this morning marked the capture and successful release of Smiley's friend. I believe our attic is now opossum free! So if this whole Ph.D. thing does not work out, I think opossum extraction may be a viable career alternative. After all, I now have both experience and a trap!
3 comments:
So my question is this: have you ever eaten opossum? I had it once at a wedding reception (yeah...) and am now feeling a little nauseous thinking about those little beady eyes. In any case, you should try some opossum while you can because, if memory serves, it wasn't too bad.
Awesome opossum! Way to trap that varmit!
Oh Erin, that story is awesome. I can only picture the whole thing so well in my mind, it left me laughing out loud!! Maybe we should get you guys a TLC show about catching opossums!! Way to go, I am way proud of you. I think I would have just gone to a hotel until Kevin had rid the house of all traces of it!!
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