City life? Not with all these critters

By Eleanor D. Ryan

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2000

Peter Jennings was just signing off when we heard pounding on our back door. We both ran and opened it. There stood our next-door neighbor, who is an 85-year-old widow. She has no immediate family in the area and often asks for our help.

"Oh, Tom, please come quick. The ceiling in my washroom has caved in and I saw the leg of an animal escaping through a hole in the wall."

We were stunned for a moment and tried to make sense out of what we had heard.

All three of us hurried over to see what the problem was. Sure enough, there was a gaping hole in the ceiling. Plaster and wood fragments were everywhere. The soffit on the outside of the house had been ripped apart, which left another large hole. Tom immediately started cleaning up the mess and I tried to get answers from my friend.

"Are you sure you saw an animal?"

"Yes, and I think it was a raccoon because yesterday I saw four of them in the back yard."

"Had you heard any noises coming from the attic?"

"I haven't, but when my friend spent the night last week, she said she could hear noises. You know my hearing is poor."

She and I went back to my house and tried to analyze the situation. What to do? I looked in the telephone directory and found "Wildlife and Rehabilitation." It was then after 7 p.m., but I dialed the number for lack of knowing what else to do. To my surprise, a man answered.

"Is this a recording or a human voice?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am, this is a human voice," he answered.

I told him the problem and asked if he could help.

"Yes, ma'am. Tell your friend to tape a check to the front door and I will be there first thing tomorrow morning with a cage. It will cost her $35 for the week. We'll catch that critter."

What a relief! There was help coming.

Day 1: The next morning at 7 a.m., the man was there with the cage. He showed Tom how to rebait it if a cat got caught, and off he went. We were encouraged. Within an hour, a cat was trapped. Tom released the cat back into the neighborhood, rebaited the trap with a can of tuna and waited.

Day 2: At 6 a.m., we got a call from our friend. "There's something in the trap!" It proved to be another cat.

The same scenario for Day 3 and then, bingo! We trapped a possum. Our man came, took the possum away with the announcement, "Well, this is the daddy; the momma is still loose. I reckon you got possums in your attic."

"What will you do with the possum?"

"Oh, he'll be relocated. It's against the law to put them to sleep, you know."

Day 4: Another male possum.

Day 5: Cats.

Then I stepped in with my advice. "Why don't you put the cage in the attic and then look around up there to see if you can see any evidence of animals?"

"Good idea, ma'am. That will cost $65 more if I have to go into the attic."

"Do it! Did you see anything up there?"

"No, I didn't, but I did see where the insulation is mashed down which tells me, sure enough, something has been up there."

Day 6: A raccoon was trapped in the cage!

"Keep everything open now for another day to be sure nothing is left up there."

Finally, the holes were closed up and life is back to normal -- almost.

A friend of ours who lives two blocks away called one morning and said she and her husband were kept awake all night because of noises outside. They checked and found four raccoons swimming in their pool. Another neighbor was walking her dog one night and saw several raccoons exiting the sewer.

Where did they come from? We thought we lived in the city, but we are convinced we live in a zoo. Or maybe they were just relocated to our neighborhood.

We've all heard the expression "bats in the belfry" -- but raccoons?

Eleanor D. Ryan lives in St. Petersburg.

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