Who would think of removing raccoonsfirst thing in the morning??

The comforting smell of fresh brewed coffee makes it way through the house in the early hours of the morning.  Alarms are softly buzzing in different bedrooms.  Everyone is sluggishly moving about their morning routines, getting ready for the hustle and bustle of a normal day.  Someone turns on the TV while Mom is scrambling eggs.  Talk centers around homework, after school activities and what the general schedule is for the day.

Suddenly, someone says, “Shhhh, shhhhh!  Listen!”  Everyone stops talking and looks awkwardly at each other while trying to figure out what they’re listening for.  “What . . . “ Dad says, but he’s quickly shushed.  There, softly, everyone hears it.  A quiet scrabbling coming from right above their heads.  Then, a small squeak.             Someone volunteers to run outside and see if there’s anything on the roof, but nothing is spotted.  The scrabbling reoccurs.  Dad sighs.  “Must be something in the crawl space.”

Suddenly the day isn’t normal anymore.

Dad gets out the ladder, grabs a flashlight and climbs up into the small hole in the ceiling.  He shines the flashlight around every corner, and almost misses it, but there!  A shiny flash of eyes staring back at him from above the kitchen.  One set of eyes?  No, more.

Dad comes back down the ladder where everyone else is watching expectantly.  “We’re going to have to get help.  I think there’s raccoons up there.”

Everyone bursts into exclamations.  “How did they get up there?”  “Why our house?”  “Come on, Dad, you can get ‘em!”  But, Mom walks over to the computer, gets the number for removing raccoons, and calls.

When the raccoon removalserviceman arrives, he verifies there’s a mother raccoon and her pups up in the attic.  They’re nesting on the opposite end of the house, far away from the crawlspace access, so he suggests the best way to remove the raccoons is to cut a small hole in the ceiling close to their nest.  He’s going to reach in and remove them one by one.

Mom’s worried about the mess.  Dad’s worried about having to patch up the hole afterward.  But, they decide messes can be cleaned up, holes can be patched, but those raccoons must be removed.  The small hole is cut.

The brave serviceman climbs up a ladder, wearing heavy gloves and armed with nothing more than a mirror.  The mirror lets him see where the raccoons are.  He looks, retracts the mirror, and sticks his arm up into the hole.  A short time later, one pup is removed.

“AWWWWW!” says everyone, including Dad.

One by one, the adorable raccoon pups are removed and placed carefully into a bag.  Soon, the bag is wriggling and squeaking.  Although these are pests that have invaded their home, the family can’t get over how cute they are.  Still, they’re happy to have them out of the house.

Removing mamma raccoonisn’t as easy.  It requires a specially devised noose, but she’s removed, spitting and growling and unhurt.  She’s carefully loaded into the truck, along with her pups.

All of a sudden, the house is quiet again and the family goes back to their routine activities.  They still love talking about their little raccoon family!