Raccoons in the Attic

Our house was built around the time of the Civil War, hence a few cracks and crevices even though it has been masterfully restored. To wit: Several days after Judy, Nancy and I moved in -- that would be on the Ides of March 2008 -- we heard an odd scratching in the living room ceiling. And in the ceiling over the library. And over the kitchen.  And in the attic walls.

"Rats," the exterminator said. "Clearly, you have rats."

But we didn't. Then, along with the scratches in the ceiling, we heard a ruckus on the roof.  And in the morning saw little muddy footprints on the white posts that lead to the roof.

"Raccoons," the exterminator said.  "Clearly, you have raccoons." 

And we did.  Well, not raccoons in the plural -- that came later -- just one giant, fierce, wild-eyed, pregnant raccoon that had decided the darkest, quietest, warmest place to have her babies was under our roof and over our heads and NO ONE was going to stop her.

"I will lure the raccoon out through my sturdy one-way trap with delicious tidbits and she won't be able to get back in," the exterminator said.

Night after night he tried -- first with marshmallows, then fruit, then peanut butter, and finally fresh salmon that costs $15.95 a pound at the Co-op. But the raccoon wouldn't have any of it.  One night she got so fed up with the whole trap thing she banged the cage against the roof for eight straight hours until it was nothing but a tangled, mangled mess of wires.

"I will board up the hole she uses to get under the roof," the exterminator said.  He was now heavily invested in the project and suffering performance anxiety. When the raccoon returned from her nightly prowl for food to find her entrance boarded up, she ripped the roof to shreiking shreds and flung the tiles to the ground. 

It was about that time we heard little mewing sounds.  Like a basket full of kittens with their eyes still shut.  "Ohmygod," housemate Nancy said, "she's had babies!"

"Babies!" housemate Judy echoed.  "I LOVE raccoon babies!  Maybe we can raise them as pets."  Judy and Nancy watch Animal Planet and rescue strays.  Me, not so much. The idea of a house full of baby raccoons tipped me over the edge.

"Can't you just crawl in there and GET them?" I asked the exterminator.  He couldn't. Too dangerous. "Well do SOMETHING! We need them OUT!"

His sympathetic eyes lit up.  "I have an idea," he said.  "We can put a radio in the hole in the roof and play talk shows really, really loud all day and all night, and we can shine a spotlight into the hole.  Raccoons hate noise and light."  Perfect plan, except the hole was right over our living quarters which meant we'd have to listen to really really loud talk shows all day and all night.

"COYOTE PEE!!" our friends Tom and Teri said.  "Spray COYOTE PEE around the roof and she'll never come back and you can get the babies out."  Brilliant!  All we'd have to do is go to Guns-R-Us next to the adult video store in Medford and buy a quart of COYOTE PEE.

It was at that point that Judy and Nancy decided to light candles and walk the perimeter of the property chanting Kum-Bah-Yah and sending universal love to the raccoons.  And I, who do not like raccoons or think they're cute or want to adopt their babies, made Marshmallow Rice Krispie Treats for some reason I can't now remember, that Nancy flung into the hole in the roof.

Nothing worked.  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.  And we finally gave up.  We turned off the talk show and turned out the light and stopped bombarding the roof with sticky treats.

Two days later the mama raccoon left with her babies.Two months later Judy was walking to work when a big ole raccoon with a smirk on her face crawled out of the rain sewer and crossed the street right in front of her followed by four little raccoonlets. "She wanted to show me her babies," Judy said.  Judy lives in a magic world that others cannot enter.

"Of course she did," I said. "Of course she did."