If you’re trying to restore or renovate your home, you probably already know that the PO holds a special place in your memory, living on long after they’ve vacated the premises. The painted over woodwork, lack of footings on additions, multiple flooring layers and walls you can see daylight through are some common territory markings of these faux-paneling aficionados.
“Will they stop at nothing?!!” you whine, as you slide deeper in debt fixing the errors of their ways.
No. They won’t stop. And I know this for a fact because against this homeowner was done the most atrocious indignity a PO has ever committed.

Our PO gave birth in our ceiling. To quintuplets.

Now, while I’m sure she completely considered herself the owner, Roxy Raccoon will be not-so-fondly remembered as the Previous Occupant of our kitchen addition.

About this time last year, we’d just finished insulating and hanging drywall. A few weeks earlier—after our windows arrived and were installed—we finally broke through the former exterior wall to embrace our new space. Then a rather brutal late cold snap hit, and with no heat being supplied to the addition yet, we hung plastic between the original kitchen and the work-in-progress, using a portable heater when we had time to work in there, which wasn’t very often.

You could blame the fact that our presence in that part of the house was generally accompanied by the sound of power tools…but I think we were just clueless twits, because it was into May before we realized that it wasn’t only the heating bills that had hit the ceiling.

But by then, it was already too late. Idiots that we were, we thought it was a squirrel we’d been hearing at first. It was actually our daughter—whose lack of stature gave her a bit of an edge here—who spied the raccoon from the window as its tail end disappeared into the rafters one morning. We left a message with a pest control company before heading off to work, and my husband returned home with some hardware cloth and began to staple it around the roof’s perimeter—until pest control returned our call that evening and mentioned there might be a litter up there. They said they’d be by around five the next evening and would survey the situation—so we left some open space where she seemed to be entering. That night, John and I (wearing sweaters) quietly sat reading in the addition and—surprise, surprise (not really)—heard the mewling of baby raccoons.
The following day, John came home from work armed with a flexible borescope (he works in A/V, so he uses them from time to time), impressing the heck out of the pest control guys. They investigated the space and could see what looked like a nest…but no babies. They told us it was possible the mother had moved them. The plan was for us to try and pinpoint the nest location, then they’d probably have to cut a hole in the new ceiling to retrieve the litter. They left us a couple of live traps.

Did I mention that we have a flat roof above this addition? Did I mention that there was no soffit or fascia installed yet? Did I mention that my backyard was, at this point, now strewn with bits of brand-freaking-new insulation? Once again, John and I spent the night fuming in the unfinished addition, trying to guess where the nest was. At one point in the wee hours, we were sure we’d figured it out. But then, we heard a sound somewhere else…then somewhere else.

A couple of days later I was at the side door, rummaging in my purse for keys, and happened to glance upwards. Five cute little buggers were staring down at me, and they didn’t look as small as I’d guessed. No wonder we heard them everywhere—our painstaking work was being used as a ‘coon kindergym. Great.

We were now waging a humane war, knowing that cutting holes in the ceiling would be futile. We tried everything—we shoved lights and an ultrasonic mouse repeller up into the space…we collected hair and pushed it in (hey, it works on deer)...we even rigged a few cheap speakers up and tried to blast them out with various tone frequencies, electronica and pulsating dance crap that tries to pass as music—but it became really annoying…to us, I mean.

A raccoon with kits can be quite aggressive, and this furry fertility goddess definitely was. With a four year-old running around the yard at the time, we didn’t want to chance a confrontation—and we’d had a couple of close calls by this point.

As our last resort, we tried the supreme raccoon Piss-Off, filling a large live trap with a delectable smorgasbord and placing it against the exterior wall near where she gained access. In a few hours, not only was she trapped, but we had her where she could easily see her offspring…and they could see her. Now, we just needed to wait. Fortunately, the place we’d located the trap didn’t get much direct sunlight throughout the day, and we’d ensured that there was more than an adequate amount of food and water (which was topped up several times). We also set another trap up beside the mother’s, in case any of her young ones got the courage to venture down to her.
The plan was not without its downside—which we realized right away when the raccoon began clawing at the house wrap—but we resisted moving the trap and took turns being sentinels at the window to keep an eye on things. It was admittedly a bit difficult to watch how agitated the raccoon was at her present situation, but we waited it out, not sleeping all night.
The next afternoon, we released her and she high-tailed it out of our yard like a shot. At some point that day, she returned and removed her kits, but we never saw her again.

We had won. Kind of.

What R-value remains up there in the addition…will remain a mystery. We still don’t have soffit or fascia installed, but at least any droppings left will have had lots of time to decompose in a well-ventilated space. We’ve never smelled anything, even at the height of summer, and hear raccoons are apparently very clean when it comes to their nesting area.

I’m hoping that’s true, because I’ll be leaving whatever mess is up there for the FO (Future Owner) to discover.

* no animals were harmed or relocated during these events, just strongly encouraged to find themselves another place using humane methods.

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