Thursday, October 29, 2020

Something worse than rats.

 Last week one of my snap traps in the garage triggered. I have to keep traps in there because mice apparently love new car wiring. I don't keep any food out there. They just protect the Audi. The trap was by the garage door, but whatever triggered it dragged the trap to the fire door. And it was the large size trap, so whatever it was was big.

Then we started finding these ginormous poops. The kind that make you a little frightened about what's living out there. We think it's probably super rats at this point.

We want to get this problem solved quickly because winter is coming. That just makes more of them. So we put out a large sticky trap. Normally we don't use these because they tend to trap other things. Like birds. But the trap was going to be in our sheltered garage and snap traps can take a little while to work.

Night one - the trap disappears. Completely gone.

Night two - again the trap vanishes. But we were able to find one of them eventually.

Night three - we put another sticky trap out with a chocolate chip in the middle because.... what doesn't like chocolate? A few hours later we hear flapping in the garage. Out we go to investigate.

I open the fire door and I can see it's right there behind the door and he's BIG! Mr S. gets ready to dispatch it, and then I see the teeth@! Fuuuuuck. It's a baby opossum. And he's MAD! How would we even begin to get this thing off the sticky trap?

It runs off and we have to regroup.  I have no problem killing mice or rats because there will be a million more. But opossums.... what the hell do I do with that?

We just decide to leave it in the garage and see what happens. But I'm freaked out to go out there because I'm sure this little ankle bitter is going to come out from under the car and take revenge.

Day 1. Nothing. 

Day two  - Nothing.We think it might have left.

Day three? The sticky trap with the chocolate chip just reappears behind the fire door. I guess he got himself dislodged. Apparently these things have super rodent strength, because those sticky traps are crazy sticky. But why the hell is this thing living in my garage anyway?

7 comments:

  1. Could be worse. We've got a new resident skunk. I've seen it 3 times now (the striping pattern is distinctive). I'm just hoping it hasn't taken up residence in the wood pile.....

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  2. Ooooooh. Right. I love people who keep me grounded. My mind hadn't traveled that far. The burbs are getting overrun by nature - so I have that to look forward to. The raccoons are already tearing up my lawn.

    I don't even know how a possum can get in my garage. Mice can shape shift. I thought other rodents were like cats and wouldn't try places too much smaller than their face. Please let that be the case with skunks.

    My neighbor to the back traps the possums and "relocates" them.

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  3. I've never had a possum, so that I'm not sure about. Well, I saw one trying to raid the bird feeders once, but only once and I have no clue where he came from.

    I don't think I'm seeing the skunk often enough for him to be in the wood pile (please god, please don't let him be in the wood pile). And I'm not quite sure where he came from as we don't normally see skunks here till you get a few miles down the road, as apparently they don't the surrounding landscape as much or something.

    On the other hand I also have N-Eastern Coyotes (read coy-wolf-dog hybrids), and both red and grey foxes in my back yard, so wildlife is my norm!

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  4. You know those hippies who go on about how "the universe will provide" ...

    But there you are, looking a gift Thanksgiving possum dinner in the mouth, literally, and you gave up.

    You should have moved it into a bigger cage and fattened it up for a few weeks!

    WHAT THE HELL

    Isn't there supposed to be a shortage of some types of meat in America?

    Have your survival instincts faded ever since escaping the extreme хорошо́ of Sparkly Vampire Town?

    Also, I don't know what the laws are for this in California, but in Florida it's OK to hunt nuisance animals on your own property without a license.

    Gamo makes a pretty decent .177 caliber air rifle with enough punch to take out a possum if you're not a lousy shot, and it's sufficiently noise suppressed that your shitty neighbor shouldn't hear much when you do this at night with your new night vision goggles. :-)

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  5. Laughs. Yeah California is not that way. I don't even think you can kill a rattler around here now. ~Because they were here before us.~

    When I moved into this neighborhood there were black squirrels. After manY years they disappeared and one of the neighbors told me that another neighbor had been trapping them. Because he's a racist! I mean, who knows.

    But the black ones weren't protected, apparently. I liked them because they were unusual. But I haven't seen a black one in years now. At my old house a squirrel gang literally formed and one day I had about 30 of them having a fight. They were on the fences. They were on the roofs. It was bedlam.

    We are at the stage now where about once every few months you get a cougar stalking. And not the older ladies type of cougar. I think every time it involves a child people will wise up. But not yet.

    Funny story - last night MR S. says - opossums apparently glow under UV light.

    Me - uuuuuuh. How did that come up?

    Him - I was reading a story on Gizmodo that platypuses are one of the three mammals that glow. Flying squirrels, then opossums.

    So out into the garage we go with our UV flashlights trying to find one. We'd bought them for tomato horn worms.

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  6. The Joy of Cooking has a recipe for opossum... just saying.

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  7. "And not the older ladies type of cougar ..."

    Observe the cougar in its default state of anger at being denied its ideal conception of a perfect meal.

    One must be cautious around angry cougars because they may strike without warning and with extreme ferocity.

    Under no circumstances should one go on walks near a cougar prowling a moonlit beach, because one may be found on it the next morning, nursing a headache, covered in sand, and missing everything else.

    *mock Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" narrator voice* :-)

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