Raccoons are dealing crack in my attic

You know how some people don’t want to go to the doctor because they just know it’s going to be bad news?  We don’t want to put our extension ladder up to the roof for the same reason. In spite of the fact that our good neighbour Neil was pretty sure he saw a family of raccoons shinnying up our drain pipe and then entering our roof.  AGAIN.

Last night, as I was typing this, I heard bigger-than-squirrel noises coming from our eaves.  Which means we’re going to have to grab that extension ladder and go up and take a look.  And I just know that we’re not going to like what we’re going to see. 

Raccoons with switch blades, dealing crack. 

That’s what we’re going to find.  And holes in our roof.  Ginormous-freaking holes that will have to be repaired.

This spring, I was focused on combatting dandelions – not varmints.  I was planning that kind of attack.  Now we have to evict a raccoon colony from our roof.  Can we use Indiegogo or Kickstarter to raise funds for this?  I know!  I could turn it into performance art!  I’ll film it in B&W and use subtitles.

We totally would have had the funds to do the roof this year if we hadn’t had to pay if I weren’t so freaking honest and demanded that David claim all the income he made from self-employment this year, thereby owing a nauseau-inducing tax amount to the CRA.  Damn me and my wanting to support better education and healthcare in our country!  What the hell is wrong with me?  Why couldn’t I just LIE like everyone else?

We headed to bed, but the party above us was so loud that David decided that he’d to take a look.  Naked.  In the dark.  He wanted to suss out the situation and see if he could spy the raccoons out the back window, you know, surreptitious-like.  Instead, he found himself in the middle of the dark attic, hearing close-up raccoon noises that made it sound as if he were surrounded.  Naked.  In the dark.  By raccoons with switch blades dealing crack.  Then,  as I lay in the room below all this, David lost his mind.

The pounding and growling began… 

BANG!  BANG-BANG-BANG!   BANG!  BANG-BANG-BANG!
GROWL!!!  

A Stomp-esque musical number from my vantage point. It went on for a good 7 minutes. I’m surprised that Rissa didn’t wake from the pandemonium.  Eventually, David returned to bed.

“Are they gone now,” I asked.

“No.”  There was a pout in his voice.

“Still in the roof?”

“They are partying over-top of the light fixture.  I’d bang and then they’d skitter away, but then they’d come right back. Taunting me… Banging back…  ‘Oh yeah!?!  You’re going to bang at us?  How about this!?!’ “

He put his head on my chest.  “We’re going to have to go up with the ladder, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

ps.  So we got the ladder out.  It became immediately apparent that the raccoons had eaten their way AROUND the boards that we had placed over their old entry points.  Note to self: find extra money to put sheet metal on the eaves when we fix the roof.