Rocky Raccoon. Got into our room.
Well, our attic actually.
And he decided to bring his entire family.
And I let it happen.
It started with the chimney
I had seen the signs.
The siding had been chewed on and peeled back a bit, so I patched it up. It kept happening, but I’d spray some Critter Ridder and repatch.
I actually thought it was the squirrels who had done that. They were no strangers to messing around with the chimney. In fact, one fell into our fireplace once! And then escaped into our living room! (that was mayhem!)
We like our little animal friends.
Outside, at least.
The two cats are inside. But we have lots of wildlife outside. We’d seen the raccoons at night, possums, armadillos, snakes, an occasional fox. We have deer from time to time – one pair was born in our front yard!
And the squirrels? They live in the palm tree out back. We even named them!
- Bacon
- Jamiroquai
- and Kyle-Bob!
They make us laugh.
(especially Kyle-Bob.)
But I messed up.
I had noticed more raccoon activity.
And I kind of put off solving it.
“It isn’t a big deal yet.”
And then it became a big deal.
“What in the…?”
I walked out the back door onto our deck and saw debris scattered everywhere. Wood. Roof shingles. Are those bite marks?
I looked up to see where it had fallen from and I noticed a gap in our shingles.
“Crap!”
So I got back on the roof.
And this is what I saw.
They had chewed through the roof!
And there was more.
A lot more.
The raccoons had invaded. And moved in.
In more than 5 different spots on our roof, they had chewed, gnawed, and made themselves at home. And were living in our attic, apparently.
How had I not noticed this?
Well, most of us don’t get on the roof every day!
Sure, but if I’m honest with myself I should have been more concerned sooner. I had seen droppings even on the deck and I had heard things on the roof at night. I knew the chimney was getting worse.
But I waited too long to proactively investigate and it cost me.
To the tune of $4500!
Ugh!
Between trapping the animals, patching the siding, replacing the shingles fixing the roof, disinfecting the attic, my unwillingness to admit there was a problem (and do something about it) cost me dearly.
Damn raccoons.
Are there raccoons in your attic?
You knew that was coming. 😉
But seriously. Are you putting off stuff you know is important? Not dealing with issues you know are going to cost you? Are you being honest with yourself that it is time to actually suck it up, admit that just hoping things would just go away isn’t going to work? Pretending not to notice all the while they were making space in the room upstairs?
Might be time to get up on the roof and take a look.
Till next time,
Rick
