Who Looks Worse, Paul or the Possum?

We had seen evidence of what we thought was a raccoon under the house. We had seen a raccoon in the backyard and assumed the tracks and spoor under house was his.

The way the house sits on the foundation leaves gaps between the siding and the stones below that are large enough to allow any manner of creature easy access to the crawl space under the house. We closed up the largest of these gaps by stapling a heavy metal screen material in place. I then crawled under the house to clean out the debris and nesting material the beastie(s) had left behind.

To my surprise, when I had crawled to the opposite end of the house I saw a possum peering at me from a hole where the main water pipe entered the basement from under the porch. Since I couldn’t reach far enough into the hole to grab him, I suggested to the possum that he join me, but he must have detected the larceny in my offer, and declined.

I crawled to the other end of the house, exited the basement and let Carrie know we had a visitor. We decided that some ammonia spray should encourage the possum to leave its den thus enabling me to capture it.

I filled a sprayer with a mixture of ammonia and water and crawled back through the basement to the far side of the house. Spraying the possum den and the possum had little effect, other than to make the possum sneeze.

So back out I crawled. This time I fashioned a capture stick with a loop of rope at the end. So back in I crawled. Carrie stood at the far end of the basement to give me encouragement and enjoy the contest.

In addition to my capture stick, my arsenal included a flashlight, a work light, a plastic box with a hinged lid ostensibly to house the possum on its trip out of our house’s crawl space, and the ammonia sprayer.

I tried a few times to get the capture stick’s loop around the possum’s neck, but it refused to face me and cooperate. I did manage to get the loop around its tail but the possum pulled free before I had pulled him out of his nest. But this effort did leave the tail within my reach, so I grabbed the possum by the tail and pulled him out of the hole.

So now here I am, lying in the dirt in the crawlspace under our house, at the opposite end of the house from the basement door with a possum by the tail. The possum is not happy with me for first spraying him with ammonia and then dragging him from his home. I tried unsuccessfully to convince him to get into the box. Fortunately the possum was content biting the box lid rather than me. So I crawled out from under the house once again, this time dragging a reluctant possum with me all the dusty dirty way.

Here is a photo the Carrie took as we emerged. The possum looks like he’s been doused with ammonia and then dragged through the dirt for about 40 feet. So do I.

What do you do with a captured possum? We discussed a number of options, including possumnasia. But we picked something a bit more poetic. Remember our lawnmower that was stolen, taken over the back fence into our “neighbor’s” yard? Well, our smelly pissed-off possum willingly went over that same fence. Possum Karma.