POSSUMS IN DA HOUSE - Part II

Part II - Where’s Momma

 

 

 



Missed Part I...find it here - http://joeh-crankyoldman.blogspot.com/2013/01/possums-in-da-house-part-i.html  Go ahead, its short.  We'll be right here.

Ok, all caught up? 

The next day I left for work without mentioning the possums.  Matt left for work as well, our secret intact.  I had to think…how do I get rid of these beasts?  How did they get in the house?

One week before the invasion, we had the sill of our family room repaired.  There was termite damage, and there was a hole in the sill which covered the crawl space that the family room was built over.  At night I had heard a scratching noise, but thought it was from the outside.  I now realized what had happened.

The possum family was bedding down in our crawl space leaving only at night through the hole in the sill.  When the sill was repaired, the possums were entombed in the crawl space.  The babies were able to squeeze through a small hole from the crawl space and into the basement under the main part of the house.  Momma was too big to squeeze through the hole.

At work I received a rather testy call from my wife.  “Joe…why are there two dictionaries over the heating pipe hole in Spencer’s room?”  

Trapped, I was forced to tell her about the possums in the basement, and probably the crawl space.  She took it surprisingly well.  We called an exterminator.  I wanted the critters out of the house, and I didn’t want momma to die in the crawl space and stink the house up.

The exterminator sent a seventeen year old kid who did not have a clue what to do.  I spoke to him from work and suggested that he at least make a larger opening from the basement to the crawl space so momma (and maybe papa) could escape to the basement.

That night I sealed the basement door to the kitchen.  I opened the double “Bilko” doors from the basement to the outside.  I then covered the steps that led up and out the double doors with talcum powder.

I checked the steps every hour.  At two in the morning when I checked the stairs there were two sets of tracks.  Little bitty baby tracks and great big momma tracks.  I slammed the double doors shut.  The possums had escaped and I suspect they were as happy to be out of that basement as I was to see that they had left.

I learned much from the whole possum fiasco: 

Possums really do “play possum.”

When up against adversity, both my son and I were sissies.

My Black Lab hunting dog was actually a “show” dog…pretty, sweet, but worthless when the chips were down.

Talcum powder can be used for more than just drying a baby’s butt.

                                                            AND

The only thing uglier than a possum is: A Possum In Da House