Things That Go Thump In The Attic...

I am hoping that the thump I heard up in our attic last night was not a raccoon. And if it was indeed a raccoon, then I pray it was a lone bachelor raccoon needing a quiet place to sleep, not a mama raccoon who needs a nesting spot for her baby.

My fear is another mama raccoon losing her tiny baby inbetween our walls, which happened two years ago. That particular female raccoon got into our garage because I used to leave the door open for our cats. From the garage, she found a spot in the rafters that led to our attic via the breezeway between the garage and the house. Into our attic she wandered, till she found just the right spot for her nest. Mama raccoon and baby raccoon, snug and safe and hidden.

Of course, had I not left the garage door open a bit for our cats, mama raccoon wouldn't have gotten in there in the first place. And wouldn't you think that my cats would have the territorial instinct to shoo away the raccoon? Little did they care. As long as the raccoon wasn't dining in their dinner bowls, I guess they were willing to allow her access to the attic.

A few days after mama raccoon moved into the attic, I saw her out in our yard and figured that she'd had enough of our attic and was ready to move on. So when she left our yard, I shut our garage door tight and told our cats that the door would remain shut from then on. Little did I know that mama raccoon had left baby raccoon up above us. And how did I find out? Because for the next five nights, we didn't get any sleep. Mama raccoon tried everything she could to get back into our attic. Up on the roof she went, shaking the vents and making a racket. Onto the deck in the back of the house, turning over bird-feeders and the cat's water dish.

I can remember my husband and I out in front of our house at three o'clock in the morning, looking at that mama raccoon sitting up on our roof. Her eyes shone in the moonlight as she stared back at us. My husband got a few golf balls and tossed them up on the roof--- not aiming them at her, but just trying to make a racket so she would just leave. It didn't work... she just sat there watching the little white balls rolling down our roof and into the gutters.

The morning after the golf-ball tossing, my husband and I heard a scratching in the kitchen wall. We stood quietly and listened to it..... we scratched the wall..... and we heard a scratching right back at us. Good Lord...... mama raccoon left baby raccoon in the attic and baby had fallen inbetween the studs and lodged itself in the wall.

We called the police department. The firemen. The wildlife service. No one would come out here to rescue the baby raccoon. What to do? Open the garage door so mama raccoon could get back in? If we did that, she might bring in her friends and extended family so everyone could see the new baby. No. Too much of a risk. We couldn't let the mama back in, so we had to get baby out.

My husband went next door to our neighbor to borrow some tools. "B" has a garage filled with every tool that's made by Craftsman and Black & Decker. We have a hammer, two screwdrivers, a pair of pliers and some duct tape. When "B" heard our raccoon story, he not only grabbed some of his tools but he came back here with my husband to see what could be done.

They listened to the scratching again. They discussed the options. As they were developing their plan of action, baby raccoon made it nice and easy for them. As the three of us stood in my kitchen, we heard baby raccoon sliding and slipping and scratching as he fell further down into the wall. Judging by the sound, baby landed at the bottom of the wall behind our dishwasher.

Easy as pie! All we had to do was get the dishwasher out from underneath the counter-top, cut a hole in the sheetrock behind the dishwasher and baby raccoon should be within reach. My husband and "B" got right to it. I have to admit that I didn't even flinch at the thought of a hole being cut into our wall. We needed that baby out of there. Let it stay, and mama raccoon would never leave our yard and our roof. And the baby wouldn't survive much longer in that wall without food and water.

Out came the dishwasher. Into the sheetrock went a utility knife. We soon had a good-sized hole to get the baby out. Our neighbor "B" handed my husband a pair of work gloves. "What are these for?" says my husband. "Well, you don't want to reach in there with your bare hands, do you?" says "B." Two men.... standing in my kitchen looking at a pair of workgloves and a hole in my wall. Neither one of them making a move to get down there and get that baby raccoon out.

Then I heard the teeniest, tiniest whimper of a sound coming from the hole in the wall. I grabbed the gloves, put one on, and stuck my hand into the hole and there was baby raccoon. I pulled him out of there and wrapped him in a dish towel. He was no bigger than a "Beanie-Baby."

By that time, "B's" wife had come over to see what was going on. When she saw how lethargic the baby raccoon was, she suggested we get some water into him quick. And how to do that? "V" went next door to her house and was back in a flash with a doll's bottle. Her two girls had long since grown up and didn't play with dolls anymore, but "V" just couldn't part with some of their toys. And how lucky for the raccoon! We filled up the doll's bottle with water and it worked like a charm.

As soon as we had gotten the baby raccoon out of the wall, my husband called our friends "A" and "D." They lived just three streets up from ours and had just moved here from NY. We figured we had to get them in on this, and let them see the rescue of the baby raccoon. So there were six of us here that morning, all oohing and aahing over this tiny baby raccoon drinking water out of a doll's bottle.

While my husband and "B" closed up the hole in our wall and got the dishwasher back in place, the rest of us decided that baby raccoon needed a name. Being that I was the one who was 'brave' enough to stick my hand in the wall, I figured it should be me who christened this creature. He looked like any other raccoon that I had ever seen, except one of his ears was bent way back and looked to be folded back permanently. Guess it was the way he fell into the wall that did it, because every time we tried to straighten out his little ear, it just flopped back again so it looked like he had only one ear.

One ear? Of course! I christened him "Vincent Van Gogh." Vinnie for short.

We kept Vinnie in our breakfast room for the entire day. I made sure the dog and the cats didn't come near him. Our dog barked at and chased adult raccoons, so I didn't want to find out what she'd do with a baby. And our cats were jealous of other cats, so heaven only knows whose feelings would get hurt if one of them thought we had adopted a new baby for the house.

The more I fed Vinnie, the more I wanted to keep him. After he had taken in enough of the water, his eyes got a little brighter and he was happy and alert. I cleaned him up a bit, washing away the dust that got on him during his wall-time. I wrapped him up in a clean dish towel and Vinnie snuggled down for a snooze right there in my lap, with his head tucked into my arm. Have you any idea how adorable a baby raccoon can be?

My husband took one look at me and said "No way. Don't even think about it." He knows me too well. "We have one dog and three cats. The inn is full. Vinnie needs to go back to his mama." Of course, he was right. My cute, adorable little Vinnie would be growing into an adult Vinnie and would out-weigh our cats and out-run our dog.

As soon as the evening sky turned to dusk, we sat by the windows in our breakfast room and waited for Vinnie's mama to find her way into our yard. Sure enough, just as she did on all those last five nights when she kept us awake, over the fence she came, headed straight for our garage. I was ready for her. I had a laundry basket out on the deck. I quickly said good-bye to Vinnie and brought him outside and put him in the basket. Just as quickly, I got back in the house and into my chair by the breakfast room windows.

My husband and I watched as mama raccoon sniffed around the laundry basket. After determining that my Vinnie was really her baby, she grabbed poor little Vinnie by the back of his neck and took off with him through our yard and up over the fence and she was gone. Poor Vinnie cried and screeched the entire way. He had it easy with me. All bundled up in a soft towel, taking naps on my lap and being bottle-fed warm milk and fresh water. Now he was back in the hands of not only his mama, but Mother Nature herself.

That was two summers ago. Not a sign of a raccoon in our attic since then. Until last night. That thump. A good-sized, loud thump. Could a raccoon somehow have gotten thru one of the vents in the roof and landed in our attic? The garage door is never left open anymore, so there's no entry that way. When I told my husband about the noise, he didn't seem worried. All he said was "Maybe Vinnie came back for a visit so he could show his kids where he started out."