My IRL Late Night Adventure (Patreon)

Okay, so I mentioned having problems with the local wildlife in my last post, and said I'd explain later. Now seems like a pretty good time (you'll see why in a second), but first, story time!

About 2 1/2 years ago (just before I got sick) my next door neighbor mentioned seeing animals in her backyard. Now this neighbor is kind of irrational (being kind) and I didn't have the heart to tell her that she had a ground hog living under her porch steps all summer (because I didn't want her panicking and calling animal control or exterminators to put down poison or anything since I look after two feral cats that pretty much live in my yard during the summer). 

Anyway, in mid winter, just before I got sick, I was sitting in my living room, when I noticed the dog acting a little strangely, then I heard a noise in the kitchen. I thought it was one of the cats, but then i realized that all of the cats where in the living room with me and the dog... So I peered over and saw a big fat mother Possum walk into my kitchen from the laundry room... I made a noise and the dog barked at her, and she ran off back into the laundry room... I thought, well, I'll have to find the hole she came in through and seal it up. But I didn't see her again in the house, and I got so sick in the following days that I honestly forgot about her. 

When I got back from 8 days in the hospital, I found that my neighbor must have seen the momma possum going under her porch steps (into the old groundhogs burrow) and had called an exterminator. Sure enough, Momma possum and one of her babies were in a trap in the backyard. Problem was, she had put chicken wire over the hole, not realizing that there were five baby possums still down there... How do I know there were five? Because they came up into my house to look for food!  

They were tiny, and I didn't want to hurt them. But they were just big enough that the cats and dog wanted nothing to do with them. Over then next few months, I tried to frighten them off, I sealed up every source of food they might have found, I changed the cats feeding schedule so they wouldn't leave leftover food in their bowls... Just trying to convince our little uninvited guests to move on... Until I finally realized that they couldn't leave. They could climb back under the house, but they had gotten just big enough that they couldn't get out! So I had to catch them... I bought a humane trap (like the kind animal control uses) and set it out with some left over cat food. And over two weeks, I caught four of them. Each time, I would call animal control in the morning to come get them. It got so bad that the operator at animal control started to recognize my voice... The third time I called she actually said "You again! How many of those possum are there?!". Anyway I caught four of the five, and the last one escaped the trap and managed to find a way out of the house for himself... So for a year and a half, I was possum free... Until this spring!

There have been at least two of the little jerks raiding my house every night, and they were too small at first to trap (and i had packed the trap away, thinking I wouldn't need it any more...hehe) ... One, I finally managed to get trapped on our enclosed back porch, and just like his daddy, he figured out how to get out on his own (I hope... Otherwise I'm in for a nasty surprise the next time I clean up out there) but the other, had made it far enough into the house that he was hiding under the living room furniture. Now, again, i like animals, and I didn't want to hurt them, but the sound of them knocking things over while trying to climb into shelves and such looking for food at 4 am was getting too much to bare... 

So while rendering a scene, I walk down stairs tonight to get some cigarettes and a drink of water, and I see the little jerk standing on top of the arm chair in the living room. I just decided this has to end, so first I put on a heavy work glove and tried to grab him... He saw me coming and hid. So the thought, I need to be a little more clever. I grabbed a length of copper tubing I had bought for some project ages ago, and an old usb cord and made a noose. But the little jerk was still hiding so I went back to what I was doing, until it poked it's head out again... And I got him!!! I was trying to do this as quickly as possible so as not to harm the little bastard... But he grabbed the telephone line with his tail so I had to hold him by his neck for so long that the tubing started to bend under the weight. But he finally let go. It would have been quite and sight if anyone but me had been there. this poor possum hanging from a 2 1/2 foot poll with his little paws together like he was preying for mercy, and my trying to assure it that "I don't want to hurt you, but you have to get the hell out of here!"

I would have carried it to the grounds of the Senior Center across the street, but the poll was bending and the poor thing was looking rather poorly, so I put it at the edge of my property and watching it run off (after it caught it's breath)... Lets see if it's learned it's lesson and runs off for good, if not, it's time to bring out the trap...

That's been my evening so far! I hope you guys are all doing well and staying safe... (the picture above is the first possum I caught waiting for Animal Control to come get him)