There's a Coon in My Attic!

You can add "wild coon" to the list of problems I never thought I'd have to face in life.

But that rustling noise coming from above my head tells me I was wrong. 

I hear the banging as I try to go to bed at night. It wakes me up at unnatural hours before dawn, as my uninvited visitor burrows in my insulation in an attempt to build a dream home.  As I watch primetime television, I hear it trying frantically to burst through my ceiling so it can watch football beside me.

I've been leaving out some extra chips and salsa, just in case.

The worst part is that I'm helpless to get rid of my new house guest.  What used to be the attic in my house was renovated into the master bedroom, so there's only a few inches of space between my roof and the ceiling.  The coon has managed to find it, and there's no going up there to drag it out.  I could patch up the hole in my porch's roof through which the coon probably entered, but that would just as likely trap the coon in as trap it out. 

In my desperation, I briefly thought about rat poison. Moral issues aside, I don't know how I'd even get it up there, and it would result in either a festering rotted raccoon carcass above my living space, or a Really Angry Raccoon Out For Revenge, and neither of those situations sound like much fun.  Plus, it would make for a really awkward vibe if the raccoon ever finds its way inside to watch football with me. 

I tried to bang on the ceiling in the hopes of making it scamper way.  Instead, all I managed to accomplish with that effort was to weaken the strength of the thin layer of material separating me from the wildlife above me.

At my lowest moment, I thought about just deeding the house over to the coon and moving back to St. Louis, where we moved from five years ago and still have a house. But if I tried this strategy of appeasement, the coon would probably follow us in the hopes of annoying us into another lucrative real estate deal.

So, faced with one raccoon and no options, I called a wildlife removal company today.  I'm sure it will be expensive beyond reason when all is said and done, but there wasn't any other choice.  And now, a few hours later, I've now became identifiable to all my neighbors as the guy with a giant coon trap sticking out of his roof.  And I don't mean that metaphorically.

I find myself walking outside to check the rooftop trap every 20 minutes or so.  I'm sure I'll be scared out of my wits if there's ever an actual coon inside of it, but I just can't help myself. Having a coon in one's attic will do strange things to one's mind.

There is great irony in this ridiculous situation. I grew up in a rural setting on the outskirts of town.  I hated living 15 minutes from the closest grocery store and risking my life at the hands of poisonous snakes every time I tossed a football into the bushes, so my childhood goal was always to live in a bigger city, and the most urban atmosphere I could find within it. 

I did that.  I made a point of finding a house within walking distance to most everything I could want.  I ruled out living in a subdivision, because even that felt too remote. We live four houses away from one of the busiest streets in town. We have a very small yard, and even that was only because my wife absolutely demanded a modicum of space between us and our neighbors. In every single way, I've made a point to depart from the rural lifestyle of my childhood. 

Basically, every major housing choice I've made in my adult life was geared toward avoiding having to worry about stuff like "what would happen if there was a coon in my attic?"    

But I have one anyway. 

At least I think it's a coon.  It actually could be something much worse, I suppose.  All I really know for sure is that it's big, it's loud, it comes out at night and it seems to like football, so it could be a coon, a panther or maybe even John Madden.

 My neighbor saw a raccoon on my roof a few weeks ago, though, and the wildlife guy who examined our roof spotted what appeared (to him) to be raccoon poop, so I'm going to assume that's what we're dealing with. 

That beats having to learn how to distinguish between raccoon poop and other types of feces. 

Besides, if it's something bigger, I really don't want to know.

Although I might buy some extra chips, just in case.