Casa Jonsson

It isn’t news to those of you who know Nils and me well: we aren’t pet people. That might be an understatement. We don’t even want a goldfish. I’ve often said I’d rather have another baby than a pet, and I don’t make claims like that lightly.

You pet lovers will be amused to hear that, despite our efforts not to give aid or comfort to the enemy, the animal kingdom has succeeded in pulling the wool over our eyes.

Near the end of April we started hearing scampering sounds on the roof. There are lots of squirrels and trees in our area so we didn’t worry. But after a few days it became clear that the sounds were not coming from on top of the roof but from underneath it. As we were preparing for houseguests of the welcome sort, we called the exterminator immediately.

What initially sounded like a cute, outdoor pet soon sounded like a indoor circus elephant. The exterminator, whom our kids call “Mr Perry,” told us that he thought we had a ’possum in our attic. Sure enough, what at first sounded like just a little pitter-patter of feet mutated into the thudding of … a wrecking ball? Then the gnawing and clawing started. Then sounds of ripping insulation. Every day it was worse. Mr Perry set the trap with some cat food. (A Havahart trap does nothing more than contain the animal so it can be released in the wild.) We started treating our new pet to fresh water, chunks of apple, cat food, tuna, sardines—no interest. It was distressing.

One day while I was in our home office I actually heard it relieving itself in the attic. I kept watching for a yellow spot on the ceiling but I guess fiberglass insulation is quite absorbent. Nils and I were starting to have nightmares about ’possums.

Finally, after two weeks of this, we heard a loud clang at about 5:30 a.m. Bingo! I didn’t want to go see it, because I had heard ’possums look like rats. I wasn’t interested in the up-close and personal. But when Mr Perry came, it turned out the ’possum had transformed into a giant 30-lb. male raccoon. A very angry and desperate male raccoon, I might add, and Mr Perry couldn’t come get him for several hours.

Eventually Mr Perry took Big Daddy to greener pastures across the Brazos River. Sadly, where a male is, a female and babies are not far away. And we knew that they had all heard and seen Big Daddy in the cage.

At about that time the kids saw on their grandparents’ TV a Discovery Channel piece on the subject of raccoons. They learned that raccoons are very smart—probably too smart to venture into the same kind of trap that got Big Daddy. They can open doorknobs. We learned that the only way to get raccoons out is to get them to move out or trap them. If you try to lock them out by closing up the entry hole after dark they will just come back, ripping through whatever they have to, including shingles, to get back in.

After two weeks of trying to trap Big Momma and between one and seven (!) babies with nightly food offerings, we gave up and decided to try to evict her with moth balls and a loud stereo in the attic. The aroma of moth balls crossed the ceiling and pervaded the entire house on a night we had invited guests for dinner. Having set the stereo on the most obnoxious talk radio station we could find, Nils and I decided that if the raccoons didn’t leave soon we would move out ourselves.

Nothing worked.

We tried something new in an act of desperation. We set another trap and positioned it outside near the exit hole. Two nights later, we heard the familiar clang! Rejoicing ensued! Nils went to go check on the raccoon and get her down only to find a neighborhood cat in the trap. The cat was terrified and ran off when he got the cage half open. About a week later, another cat got trapped in the cage, but this one wanted to stay and get fed some more. She rubbed all over Nils’s legs when we let her out. Really.

(This story is finally coming to an end.) About two weeks ago we caught another raccoon. Unfortunately, only the baby was foolish enough to get in the cage. And he was too young to survive on his own in the wild. So we got yet another trap and tried to bait the mother with the caged baby, but again she was too smart to fall for it. We could hear her trying to drag her baby away at night, cage and all. We kept repositioning the traps like this for about a week, but I was getting a little teary imagining my own baby in a cage.

It turns out that using the baby as bait wasn’t a bad strategy. It seems we convinced the mother that it wasn’t a safe place anymore because she left. We confirmed our hopes by stuffing the hole with loose newspapers so we could tell if there was movement in or out. My dad and Nils closed up the hole with flashing last Saturday.

I felt terrible about separating baby Einstein from his mother. (The kids gave him the name Einstein because of raccoons’ reputation for brains.) I got kind of attached to the little bandit and didn’t want him to die in the wilderness. So I found a wildlife rehabilitator, Bill Heyde of New Waverly, who gives captive raccoons their shots, feeds and takes care them and then releases them into “raccoon heaven” when they are ready. His facility has fully stocked ponds, lots of trees, etc.—better circumstances than digging through garbage cans in our neighborhood. So we spent a small fortune in gas to get to New Waverly and give the little raccoon a chance at a better life.

I realized that I actually love animals. As long as they stay outdoors.