Raccoons - April Fools

April 1st - Saw a raccoon on the roof of our house as we drove past.  By the time we had put the car in the garage, the raccoon had crawled around to the back of the house and disappeared from our sight.  Thus began a week with the houseguest we did not want.

When we put an offer on our house last May we had quite a surprise when the home inspection was done.   During the inspection, the way to the attic crawl space was opened.  The home inspector shone his flashlight into the corner and heard a low growl.  We immediately shut the opening and wondered what could possibly be there.  When we knocked on the wall we heard crying noises.  Turns out there was a raccoon with a couple of babies living in the attic crawl space.  Owners had to deal with the problem and get the raccoons removed before we could proceed with any further inspection and get to closing.

So fast-forward to this April.  Here is the raccoon on the roof on Tuesday getting in the same way the raccoon got in last year – through an old attic fan opening.   Immediately called the same company who removed the raccoons last year.  They came out the next day and put a cage on the roof to catch the raccoon.  So began days of waiting and watching.  Unfortunately nothing came out.  Kept calling and saying “no raccoon”.  The company came out to check the trap – saw the door had been tripped and reset it.  Still no raccoon. 

Sunday night Kristin, Paul and I were fixing dinner.  Paul thought he heard a noise upstairs but when he went up to look, didn’t see anything.  He looked in the bathroom though and saw black stains on the toilet seat – more than anything our cat has left when she has gotten up on the seat.   A few minutes later, I went up to look and looked in the spare bedroom and low and behold, saw the rear end of a raccoon climbing into the hatch.   Found a print by the stairway too.  We decided we would leave the bedroom door closed, the light on overnight and the TV on, hoping the raccoon would not come back into the house.

Enter the roofing company on Monday morning to begin the roof tear off.  Low and behold – there is not only a raccoon – but three babies as well.  No wonder the raccoon wasn’t leaving – she was staying with her babies. 

Well, the roofers made enough racket that the raccoon moved her babies to a place hard to get to so they left an opening in the roof when they were finished for the day – hoping that the raccoon mama would take her babies and find somewhere else to keep them. 

Monday night we went to bed – again with the spare bedroom door closed, the TV and light on in the room.  About four in the morning we woke up to a noise coming from there.    Paul got up to investigate and sure enough, the raccoon was in the bedroom and sticking her paw underneath the door.   Needless to say, we kept the door closed.  I tried calling the raccoon people and of course, at four in the morning, did not get an answer.   Next I tried the police – they gave me a number for another raccoon removal company.  Did get an answer there – but the cost to have someone come out in an emergency situation was rather high – and he suggested I wait for the original company to come out and get the raccoon.

So, as soon as 7:30am rolled around, I called the raccoon guy and he got out here as soon as he could – about 8.   By this time the roofers were here as well.  He brought the cage and entered the bedroom.  Took him less than 5 minutes to get the raccoon – she had been hiding under the bed.  Mother raccoon came out and was put in the truck as the roofers watched.  They told us that they had found one baby – dead – on the roof and had thrown it on the ground.  We looked at it and it was small.  It couldn’t live without its mother.  We could hear a baby crying behind the wall.  I had to take everything out of my closet so that the guy could enter the crawlspace through the opening in there.  He crawled in and got one baby – took the baby outside since it was making so much noise and we couldn’t hear if there was another baby inside or not.  He crawled back into the space but couldn’t find anything.   End result - one live baby, one dead baby and one baby missing in action.