At least the raccoon wasn't rabid or anything. It's so cute, but so not an animal you want in your house.

OOoooh -- he's cute! I once had a hedgehog get into my box spring. I found out they're porcupiney, so got a towel, picked him up and put him outside.

I have a few bats every few years. After some screaming and hiding (on my part), I close them in a room and leave the windows open and they eventually fly out. And I call my trusty friend who gives moral support.

Last year, a RAT swam up through the sewer to my toilet bowl. Egads -- slam the lid down and flush like crazy. I have never left the seat up again, but this time of year, I'm wary every time I lift the lid.

I had a raccoon die in my wall. I much prefer this live one.

That raccoon is super cute!

My late kitty, Shadow, once brought me a dying bird. Such a thoughtful one he was. I think Shadow had broken one of its wings, because the bird was fluttering about the laundry room but couldn't get higher than a few feet off of the ground.

As someone who's freaked out by all things flying, I ran and hid in my room until my dad got home. I'm not sure what he did with it.

My Great-Aunt Ruthie's solution to bats in the house involves a badminton racket and a paper bag... she would use the badminton racket to stun the bats, then scoop them up in the paper bag to take them outside. You haven't really lived til you've seen an 85-year-old woman smack a bat with a badminton racket. (Personally, I prefer eiw's close the door and leave the windows open plan.)

Once I had a squirrel get into the laundry room by crawling up the dryer vent (the outlet for the dryer vent was on the second floor!). That little bastard scared the heck out of me; I thought he'd found his way out on his own, then all of a sudden he scrabbled up the back of the washer and peeked his little squirrel face over the top of the control panel! Eventually he found his own way out, though.

This poor thing looks like a baby... must've gotten separated from a parent. Hope it was able to get reunited.

Releasing at night is a good idea.

We have raccoons that visit. I close the screen door at darkfall (normally keep it propped open for cats to come/go during the day).

Never had to lure one out of the house (yet), but neighbors have. Raccoons have minds of their own! Hilarious. Unafraid & curious.

At eiw:
Oh gosh, the creature-in-the-toilet scenario has always been a fear. Now it's been confirmed that this happens! Ughhh.

We had a squirrel get into the on-campus apartment I shared with two other people in college. It got in through a small window just under the eaves in the bedroom. We called building services, thinking they'd come over with a trap or something. They sent three big burly guys who chased the squirrel around and around the apartment (it was open plan), trying to get it to go out the open window way at the top of the wall. That didn't work at all, so they finally chased it back into the building and down the stairs and out of the building.

I have nothing but animals wandering in and out of my house at all times. First was the blind baby squirrel, whose mother abandoned him in the soffit outside my bedroom, but which was somehow connected to an air conditioning duct. He, blindd and starving, went looking for his mom and fell down the shaft. His screams alerted me and I chiseled out the dry wall to let him escape. He finally did, dragging himself across the floor. I put him in a back in the nest and then started panicking he'd fall again. FInally, this angelic woman from animal control came (during a dinner party) and rooted around in the nest and found not one but 2 babies abandoned. A couple of years later my cats started peeing on me at night -- very distressing as I was about to leave for a 2 monmth work trip (i was a reporter). It happened 3 or 4 times and I was thinking i would have to get rid of them -- maybe take them to my parents while i was gone -- and I wasnt sleeping .everytime they jumped on my bed I freaked out. Finally, one night they both jumped on me, standing on my chest -- I woke up and heard something eating their food in the hallway. Raccoon. They'd been peeing on mye to alrt me to him -- the only way they could get me out of bed in the middle of the night -- when I would get up I gues he skiddadled. Anyway, the raccoon ran into the bathroom and we both jumped about 7 feet when we both peeked our heads around the corner to see if the other was still there. It took him a couple of hours but I turned out all the lights, left open the back doors and he got out of town, never to come back. Then there was the baby possum who started casing the joint from my back porch. Every night he got a little closer, then he finally came in, moved into the same bathroom (hiding in a crawl space) for a few days. Poor cats. (they like the crawl space. It's their hidey hole). Anyway, I borrowed a have a heart trap, took me about 2 hours to figure out how to set it up, and then a day for him to find his way in. In the meantime he crawled into my bedroom through the open space next to my a/c -- very small. He hissed at me and turned around to leave, so I spanked him and told him to stay out. It was very strange.

The woman we share our duplex with has 5 indoor/outdoor cats. The cats come and go as they please through the pet door and recently, a raccoon has joined their pack! Our neighbor leaves bowls full of dry cat food out and she said she hears and has seen the raccoon on many occasions. He comes in at night to eat the cat food and play in the bowls of water...

The funny thing is, it doesn't seem to both our neighbor! The cats get a long w/ the raccoon and there haven't been any problems so far. I'm interested in seeing how this all pans out. Luckily, we haven't had any visits from the raccoon and I'm pretty sure our dog keep it that way.

This works especially well with animals like raccoons and skunks: lure them out with food. Put something tasty outside the door you want them to leave by and they'll probably go after it. Did that to get a baby skunk out of my Dad's garage (you do NOT want to anything to scare that intruder).

Yes I know feeding wild animals is not a good thing, however once to get them out of your house is okay. The problem with feeding wild animals is they get used to it and start relying on it

I had a bird come down the chimney in my apartment. Luckily I had a piece of plywood along with a fire screen covering the opening, but I still had to get it out of there. My attempt to get it in a box failed and it started flying around. I hid in my room until it calmed down, then opened windows until it found one to escape.

I will admit to letting it suffer for a bit in the fireplace as it awoke me at an ungodly hour and I did not yet have enough energy to deal with it.

Not really a wild animal, but back in college I lived in a side-by-side duplex. Our neighbor's cat would somehow get from their basement to ours. We never could figure out how. You'd think you were alone in the house and then you'd hear something knocking around in the basement. Scared the freak out of me every time.

Don't do this (listen to the "Squirrel Cop" story):
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/115/First-Day

I had a young opossum get into my basement and then it climbed up the stairs into the kitchen. To get him out, my husband and I lined up boxes on the floor to create a chute/path from the kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door. It worked! He ran out and leaped off the front porch. We also have had birds fly down the chimney twice but we just left the fireplace doors open and front door wide open. In each case, it took a while but the birds finally figured it out.

I had a bird fly into my house once. He sat on the curtain rod and pooped on the curtain, before making a graceful (and luckily unharmed) exit.

oh how cute poor baby.

I had a squirrel sitting on the top of my lounge chair just hanging out..when I walked in I alarmed to see him and he was alarmed to see me so he ran back out. I like to keep the back patio door open when the weather is nice but these guys are bit too brave for their own good.. and my Jack Russell is 19 yrs old and retired can't see or hear otherwise that would of never happened. I think the squirrel knew my dog was old or had a sense he was no threat or he was mocking him..

Bats are the worst. I can handle anything, but bats are horrible because they swoop at you. And, to those of you living in an old house: bats crawl under door thresholds, so locking them in a room doesn't necessarily work. True story.

And, my cats have been known to break into the neighbors houses and take naps. Luckily, no one seems to care (in fact, they all seem to love having the kitties around).

In our old house we had a mysterious basement that was a place where wild animals kept materializing and we never figured our which way they came. Our first visitor was a Canadian duck, I never seen such birds in the vicinity or neighborhood parks/ponds. I think it was flying to thier winter location and was beamed to our basement by aliens or CIA :). We eventually succeeded throwing a blanket over it and carrying it outside. Another memorable visitor was a flying squirrel, small creature crawled between the outside wall and the wood panels, cats went absolutely nuts trying to chase him out. Eventually we were able to use a big winter hat to catch him. He seems to be so lethargic (and it was November or December) that we decided that he was ready to hibernate and made a nest for him in a box with soft rugs and towels. We put the box in the location outside where cats could not get him. He actually spend there a couple of days and disappeared (got beamed up to some undisclosed location by the same entity as the duck :))

@geckotoes1 That remains to this day one of my all-time favorite This American Life stories. I laugh so hard at it every time...

I, too, leave our back door propped open well into the evening to let our cat go in and out (she REFUSES to use the doggy door - the magnets scare her), and I'm always afraid that one of these nights a raccoon is going to get in. We have a lot in the neighborhood, and have lost a chicken and a duck to them. Little bastards, though they ARE cute. But mostly we hates them.

@zarazame: What is a Canadian duck? A relative of a Canada Goose? ;)

There is the tried-and-true method involving a broom and lots of screaming. ;)

It's important not to corner the animal. If you give the animal an unobstructed escape route (and no other options) it will usually go for it.

If that doesn't work, call Animal Control for help.

I used to leave the screen door to my balcony open (more air flow that way). On one of these open-screen-door days a particularly brash squirrel came in and made a beeline for my pantry, where I found it attacking a bag of peanuts. The threw a bedroom slipper into the pantry -- not to hit the squirrel, just to startle it -- and it went bolting back outside. So that is my cautionary tale: screens are not just for blocking out the mosquitoes!

Cutest story every told on AT!

But it does remind me of a This American Life episode I listened to recently about a rabid raccoon near a lady's country house, who weighed 20 pounds and wouldn't die... kinda creepy! Lucky your's was a wee babe :)

Link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/319/And-the-Call-Was-Coming-from-the-Basement

what a darling carrier of rabies!

We have a raccoon who likes to come into our kitchen and help himself to the cats' food. He's tried to venture further into the house, but once he crosses the kitchen/livingroom threshold, our teeny housecat scraes him enough to take off (but she's not bothered by him in the kitchen, hmmm). Much as we'd love to leave the kitchen door closed in the evening, we don't have a/c and it's the only way to get a sufficient crossbreeze through the house.

Yesterday, he graduated from stealing food to tearing a hole in our porche's clapboard overhand and taken to running around in the ceiling. Fun times. Will try wolf pee around his entrance to keep him out, until we can get it patched.

We've also had a rogue squirrel come barreling through the downstairs door, make three frantic passes around the house, to settle underneath our upright freezer in the pantry.... all night.

The funny part; I live right in the middle of an urban area/

i'm in the boston area and recently had occasion to use the services of a nice guy at http://www.nuisanceanimalremoval.biz/?lid=463928369&keyphrase=nuisance animal removal&c=463127091&provider=google

he's a firefighter who does this work on the side. recommended.

i had a squirrel get into my house once (i guess there was some sort of opening under the roof/awning, then he fell into the actual house through some ceiling tiles). only noticed when i walked into my bedroom and saw something catch my eye. he was up on a shelf. i slammed the bedroom door closed and ran out of the house! then i managed to think rationally, opened up all the windows and doors that i could, opened the bedroom door...and the poor frightened squirrel made his way out in a manner of minutes. poor thing was more scared than i was.

also, my aunt used to get bats in her house. she managed to trap one in the toilet once. that was a fun story to hear/see her tell :)

The best story? Our neighbour had her iguana take off for the better part of three months. The week he was caught he had snuck into another neighbour's apartment and promptly taken a crap on his kitchen floor. The neighbour was stymied by what sort of creature would leave this particular poop, until... while drinking his coffee he happened to look up on top of his fridge to find a 15lb iguana staring intently at him. He screamed, the iguana made a break for it and was eventually caught a few days later.

This is Montreal, mind you. We don't have any iguanas.

The funniest incident I was a party to was back years ago when I worked for an art museum in Michigan. The doors at street level opened onto a small lobby with sweeping marble stairs to the second (gallery) level. There was a wide balcony behind which were the rooms where the art was hung (including a lot of French Impressionists). At one end was the Director's office, a small room with shelving and a desk.

One summer day we had the doors propped open (no AC in those days -- I think they installed it later on) and a squirrel ran in. It dashed up one staircase, ran around the balcony at high speed, ran into the Director's office where it jumped from one piece of furniture to another, barely missing various staff members (including me) who were standing around both cracking up and worrying about what to do, ran back down the other stairway, and straight out the door! It probably took two minutes, tops! It felt like a tennager doing something wild on a dare!

Thank goodness it wasn't the day the donation of signed Tiffany glassware was on the desk!!

My, how timely. This past weekend I had the unanticipated task of removing a juvenile skunk from my garage. I'd been meaning to clean and reorganize the garage for a long time, so I've gotten a lot of that done now in an effort to make it a less-inviting environment for the wild ones. I think he/she may still be getting in though, because my cats do use the garage to come and go (cat door between kitchen & garage, and another one from garage into backyard). One idea for a long-term solution would be to have a cat door higher in the wall, since I've heard that skunks don't like to climb higher than about 18 inches, and setting up a way for the cats to access it. There is a window they have access to, but I still don't want to block their cat door. I'll wait to see if the measures I've taken so far are working. I don't mind the wild animals at all, as long as they stay outside =).

14 Skunks and a possum.

I'm still scarred by it. It wasn't my house, but I had to deal with it (Thanks Dad... exactly how I wanted to spend my summer!).

Wow, we have some very kind and patient readers on this site. I'll tell you what: when there was something skittering around in my attic over my head, I called a company to come and get it. The company surmised there was a hole near the drain pipe toward the roof that was big enough for a racoon or squirrel to get in, and thought there may be some reason to believe it was attempting to store things in my attic. Gross! I'm not sure if they caught it and released it or if it was a killer trap, and I can honestly say that compared to the fear that trapped me in bed many a morning as I heard that joker running over my head, it wasn't of great import to me.

My mom once left her backdoor open while airing out the house and a possum came in the kitchen and starting eating her cat's food. Luckily she was able to shoo him out. I had a bat in my apartment earlier this summer that was much more trouble. My cat was super excited about it and was practically trying to climb up the walls to get at it. I left the windows open for the night hoping he would fly out while we stayed at a motel - I was worried about my cat being so interested in it and I have an open floor plan so I couldn't sequester us. The next morning I thought it was gone only to find him again that night. Finally the next afternoon I was able to coerce him out the window.

But the worst time was when a house I was living in was infested with squirrels in the attic. The landlord hired some animal control company and I don't know what they did but within 24 hours I was *covered* in large red very itchy hives. Apparently I was bitten by rodent mites, which don't even like humans but will bite us when their hosts have abruptly left. Horrible, horrible experience.

This article reminds me of an unfortunate incident with the first roommate I had following college. She owned a condo, and I subletted from her. She had some odd habits. She would fall soundly asleep in front of the lit fireplace with the TV blaring.

One morning I found that a critter of some sort had gotten into the wrapped pumpkin bread I had left out on the counter. Seeing some overturned lamps, I figured a mouse had gotten in, and my roommate had knocked furnishings about in her effort to shoo him away. Being a renter, I shrugged and left for work.

Turns out that when she arrived home from work my roomie saw a baby squirrel peering out the window at her. A mess of ash in the living room revealed that the little guy entered through the chimney flu--turns out my roommate left it open all the time. As if he knew his natural place, our furry visitor took up residence in the guest bedroom. My roommate hired a pest control professional to escort him out.

Oh Jeanine - what a story!! That guy sure is cute but I sure as hell would have had a hard time seeing that if he was in MY house. I would have freaked out!

Great post!

Kyle

I too have lifted the toilet seat to find a rat swimming contentedly in the bowl. This was in Hawaii (where I also had geckos as regular visitors, but they did not bother me) and apparently this kind of thing is not uncommon. Much to my landlord's relief I did not try and flush it away. After a silent and paralyzing moment of freaking out, I got the tea kettle, put it on top of the toilet seat cover and went off in the night to find some help (and also use the bathroom at police H.Q. in Honolulu- I needed to go!) In the end the animal was gassed to death while I waited outside of my studio, trying to ignore the sounds of it thrashing around in the bowl. To this day I still don't sit without looking first.

A summary...

neighbor: low bird feeder
open: attic door
squirrel: wily
us: weekend vacation
house: destroyed
removal: 6 hours
screaming: lots
mess: bloody (literally, not in the British sense)

Your local wildlife rehabbers are a good resource for dealing with and preventing these issues. Raccoons and bats carry rabies and it's best to call the pros right away.

Folks, please remember that wildlife is just that: wild. Please keep your distance, and be respectful of the animal(s). Deliberately leaving unattended pet food outside is a recipe for disaster; it is harmful to wild animals and your pets who then have to compete with wild animals for food.

Your best bet is to call a humane wildlife removal professional. Additional info about injured animals (Rhode Island/Southern Mass. area) can be found at:

http://www.riwildliferehab.org/

I once had a magpie fly in while I was sleeping. It was a studio apartment, and had really small windows, so I never really thought anything would fly in other than a couple of bugs. I woke up to the sound of panicked fluttering and bird poop falling around my apartment.

MAMA CAN WE KEEP HIM??

That raccoon photo beats every adorable puppy-on-eames-chair photo I've seen posted here by a long shot, not that I would ever want one in my kitchen. Yikes. The closest I have come is having other people's cats drop by for a visit, and the occasional bat.

What an adorable raccoon!!

While that photo is beyond adorable, raccoons are smart animals and can even work together. My parent's neighbors actually had a group of raccoons try to drown their medium sized dog in their pool. So those of you letting the raccoons eat cat food, I'd work on a solution. There are dog/cat doors with sensors you can put on their collars so that the door only opens for them. There are also storm doors with screens if you need air ventilation!

@gecokotoes1 I have the squirrel cop patch from TAL!

My neighbor told us some neighborhood cat used to sleep on their skylight screen until the day the screen broke and the cat fell through, landed on her bed, and then bolted further into her house. They tried to coax it out by putting food out but the cat (who they never saw after it landed) only nibbled on the food and eluded them for a couple of days. They finally got it out by leaving some windows open. This happened twice. The neighbor got stronger screens. She swears it was not my cat but I don't know... he was AWOL for a few days and the dates coincide. Hasn't happened since then.

Warning: do not ever keep wildlife as pets. In our local news recently is a story about a family that decided to keep a baby skunk. The entire family and a number of friends are now undergoing treatment for rabies. Unless you really know what you are doing, it's best to treat wild animals like items in a museum, look but don't touch.

Our property backs up to an avocado orchard. We've had our fair share of raccoons, coyotes, squirrels and rats in our backyard. (Our poor dog is going to have a heart attack one of these nights.)

We've learned the hard way to keep the doors and windows closed when we're not home and when we ARE home, even in daylight hours, to keep the screens shut.

Coming home to a baby coyote in the bathtub does wonders to keep you vigilant.

But cute baby raccoon!!!

Ahhh! SO CUTE!

"In our local news recently is a story about a family that decided to keep a baby skunk. The entire family and a number of friends are now undergoing treatment for rabies."

Darwin at work...

Jeanmarie, we too had a skunk in our Sonoma County CA house. It was a spotted skunk, not the more common striped variety. Came out to the kitchen at 6 am one dark January morning and Pepe (as he/she came to be known) came out from under a table and did a hand stand. My partner and I immediately backed waaaayyy up. Pepe ran into a half bath, lifted the floor vent up and dove into the heat duct! Had to cut a heat duct so Pepe could get into the crawl space under the house. Tried all the tips animal control told us to, but nothing worked. Finally had to cover a Have-a-Heart trap in black plastic and stick it down there. This was so when we lifted the trap out of the hole, Pepe would not be alarmed by anything he/she saw. Loaded the trap into the back of the pickup and drove about 5 miles down the road and let Pepe run free down Watson Rd.

Ummmmm Yes this seems to happen every summer at my mom's house where I grew up. Last year it was an opossum... chipmunk... raccoon... bat... a bird... I was the one that was home when the bird got in and I FREAKED out!! Those are to name a few. They live in the woods.

A raccoon once broke through the kitchen floor of my cousin's cottage. She woke up to see him half-way through, head looking round the space while he rested his front legs on the linoleum. She said he looked ready to order breakfast at Denny's.

Question for the people who left the rat/toilet comments: what floor do you live on? There's constant construction, road repair and who knows what else in my neighborhood and now I'm freaking out about rats crawling out of my toilet!!! (Keeping my fingers crossed that I live on a high enough floor to not have to be worried about it.) And, for those who may be tempted, please DO NOT google "rat toilet boston".

The Center for Disease Control recommends rabies injections for anyone who is sleeping in a house where a bat is found, even if they were in a different room and have no known contact with the bat.

When we had a bat in our bedroom everyone in the family had rabies injections and our two cats and dog needed rabies boosters.

This was not horrible - only 6 injections over 5 or 6 days- and the injections were not painful. Certainly nothing like the horrendous stories of my childhood( I remembered stories about 21 excruciatingly painful shots right into the stomach.)

In our case, we could have trapped and killed the bat to avoid the shots (if the bat was proven not to have rabies) but I like bats. We let the bat fly out the door and just got the injections.

Then we called a kindly 'bat guy' who discovered a bat 'nursery' behind our chimney. He put up some bat houses in trees in our yard and installed one-way doors in the hole by our chimney. After several weeks, when the bats had colonized the bat houses and left our attic, he closed the hole entirely.

So, if you find bats in your house - get the injections. Rabies is very rare, but nearly always fatal. Before we decided to get the injections, I did some research. Every year there are one or two deaths from rabies and often they have no known exposure.

S_Boston: I'm one of the rat in the toilet people.

Here's what some neighbors who've had 'em too told me -- they can only come make it to toilets that are below street level (i.e. basement). If you're above the first floor, you should be fine. What attracts them (apparently) is food in the kitchen sink, but because pipes are different, they go up the loo instead. Let me tell you -- it was HORRIFYING. My instinct was to scream bloody murder while closing the lid, and flush like there was no tomorrow. So I did.

I called some neighbors and we did research on how to deal with it -- basically, close the lid and flush (screaming is theoretically optional, but, really, who wouldn't scream?). Then you're advised to call the Water/Sewer department (which I did) tell them what happened and ask that they "bait the sewer" -- I guess they put some extra poison down there so that the rats that are swimming around don't come up. I'm shuddering just typing this.

So -- keep your kitchen sink sparkly and clean (I had a bag of corn husks and cobs in mine) and keep the toilet lid closed (so they can't get out). If you hear one in the bowl (again, I shudder), flush it and call the sewer dept.

we thought we had squirrels in the house (by the noises), which would have been bad - they think the house is their home as much as you do, and if you seal them in or out, they chew their way back through in or out. possible serious damage. it ends up we have chipmunks, which seems pretty harmless and even a touch cute, until you realize you need to treat them the same as mice. :(

This reminds me of how the wildlife in our area seems to have multiplied. Where once it was just raccoons, squirrels, various song birds, we now *enjoy* wild turkeys, foxes, eagles, hawks, coyotes, woodchucks, rabbits, Canadian geese, and the occasional deer.

Animal control has been wonderful, though. They've met their new challenges and at no time has any animal been shot or killed. Keeping food scraps and garbage sealed up and away from animals is key in keeping them out of your yard. Encourage your neighbours to do the same. Don't be tempted to feed them, especially if you have small pets or children. This might attract larger animals into your yard and might be unsafe.

ok, thank you for the laughs. My daughter is rolling on the floor while I read these to her and she insists that I share a story of my own. A few years back we had a couch reupholstered at a little shop in a rural area. Unknown to us, the couch was returned to us along with a little stowaway mouse. Well, the next morning, the family is lazing on the couch reading the newspaper when I realize that something is crawling inside my robe. As I completely freak out, my husband is yelling, "wrap the robe tightly around you so he doesn't get out and then run outside!" Long story short, I threw off the robe, thankful that it was just my husband and daughter there, and let my husband catch the mouse. Eventually he got it outside. I am still married to him.

Homebody suggested using remote controlled dog/cat collars. I've heard they work, but not around here! Our local racoons have figured out how these doors work and taunt the dogs to get them close enough to the doors to unlock, push them slightly open, then wait for the dogs to loose interest. Once the dogs have given up and wandered off, in come the racoons to wreak their havock! They got into my neighbor's pantry last week...she's STILL trying to clean up the mess!

two stories but they didn't happen to me... our friends in Houston live on a golf course and had a deer visited their living room. Either their gardener or their kids left a door open and when they returned from lunch she had a deer crashing around trying to get out. Sad and bloody story-ruined two sofas and a table and the rug - but the deer did finally find a door....

the second was friends of my parents- they went away for the winter to Texas and sometime during those months a flock of birds came down either their chimney or the vent for the dryer. Either way- they came home to hundreds of dead birds and a destroyed house...

eiw, Your response cracked me up! Thanks for letting me know that they can only swim to the garden level apartment toilets. Now I can nix the ammonia shopping trip since I'm on the sixth floor.

Rats crawling out of toilets sounds like a freakishly terrifying B-movie. On the bad-things-that-can-happen-in-my-home scale, I have to say, your story ranks pretty high! I'd definitely scream my head off if I encountered what you did!

I don't have a bat phobia, but the rabies thing with bats is taken very seriously. Turns out there are "phantom bat bites" (totally sounds like a joke, but it isn't) and bats have such good sonar that apparently any contact with them is considered suspicious. If you mention that a bat touched you at an emergency room - you will be seen immediately, front of the line, even in crowded NYC. Luckily I know this information second-hand, but luckily it is also true that rabies shots are much less traumatic now.

In the winter, the beautiful black racers that keep my subtropical garden relatively rodent free occasionally think the house would be a good hangout.

Outside, they are masters of grace and stealth. Inside, not so much. One Christmas, I walked into my bathroom to find this guy curled up on a white rug (camofail). A quick tail grab ruffled his dignity, but soon he was back on the job.

http://dean.pulley.org/plumbingsnake.jpg
http://dean.pulley.org/plumbingsnake(3).JPG

We have raccoons living on the roof of our rowhouse, in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the country! They got up there by climbing the vines that are growing on our house, in the rear, and they regularly get down that way, too, and sit on top of my son's air conditioner at night, scaring the crap out of him. We never leave any of our windows or outside doors open, on principle (bad air quality, bugs, squirrels, not wanting our house broken into, etc.) but now we have another reason to avoid this: our rooftop raccoon tenants!

When I was a kid, we had a wood burning stove. A bird got trapped in the stovepipe leading outside and somehow found his way into the house. My mom trapped him under a laundry basket and then just scooted him to the door.

This also happened to me when I was an adult. Unfortunately, I had a broken leg at the time, so the laundry basket trick was a little beyond me. I had to call my father in law, who was agile enough to catch the bird in a huge bath towel and release it unharmed. But until he arrived things were quite exciting, because I was trying to herd my two cats, who had gone into 'hunting mode' into another room, away from the frantic bird banging around in the living room. There is nothing like trying to herd cats while on crutches. I wish I had a video of this whole event, because I'm sure it would make people cry with laughter.

This would be my worst nightmare. To quote Woody Allen, "I am at two with nature."

Yep, I keep my door propped open for my two cats all the time. Lately, Pepe Le Pew, his son and wife have started coming in and eating the cats' food. Now when I go to bed, I make sure both cats, Harry and Sally, are in and I close the door. I have shooed the skunks out numerous times, they have never sprayed. Mostly, just have to clap my hands or throw a book near them, and they scoot out. Now, I just hear their little paws scratching on my front door when it is closed.

I sure like the baby raccoon! I think I'll name him Trevor.

A huge raccoon got into my second story porch, because of a full trash bag out there (never did that again!). It clawed its way in through a screen and even tried to enter a partially open kitchen window. It returned several times a week to sleep on the porch. The owner finally covered the first-floor porch supports with sheet metal so it couldn't climb up. Two years later it's still working, but I still check before going on the porch.

I've had the bat-flying-in-the-house problem also. After making sure my parrot was safe, I closed all the doors I could, then opened a porch window. I sort of "herded" it toward the opening. I still don't know how it got in.

The most unusual was a flying squirrel, which spent hours eluding us by running up one wall then flying off of it, skidding across the large expanse of well shellacked hardwood floor, running up the opposing wall...I've had various other critters, it's never convenient and always a bit of an adrenaline rush.

Though you probably already have, be sure to clean everything really well! In addition to rabies, raccoons can carry some very nasty parasites (B. Procyonis is one).

Having spent time in Florida, and hearing about snakes and even alligators coming up out of toilets, that's a secret fear of mine. Those rat/toilet stories above freak me out. Bad enough that here in high-rise New York apartments there's still the occasional story of huge python coming through neighbors' pipes or being found with skin shed in closet or something...

In my own New York experience, besides the occasional city mouse and once a squirrel, we had an opossum come into the kitchen which, in my night-time shock, seemed to my brain that my roommate's hair was being pulled (as if it were a wig) across the floor! Animal disappeared completely inside somewhere we couldn't locate; resurfaced a few days later further uptown per a Yahoo News photo (at least we hoped it was the same one that appeared in the photo) friends pointed out finally believing my original claim I'd identified an opossum.

In Colorado one summer in my little A-frame: a bat which was amazing in that it really DID make those fantastic electric-bat sounds. I tried the swatting-with-rackets and towels that just made me gurgle horrible scared noises if it swooped near me. Finally made its way out the door I'd opened for him. At least the black bears that tried several times to open the front door knob weren't able to!

Once an entire nest of baby swallows fell down our chimney and into the pile of ashes in our fireplace. They were still blind and transparent. Once we figured out why the ash was crawling and roiling, we tried to clean them. We fed them for a while, but they all died.

Bats -

Puff talcum powder in the air.

It screws with their sonar, so they drop and you can easily collect them and take them outside without harming them.

I highly, highly recommend keeping a full water gun at the ready - they work!!! (Temporarily, of course - but no animal wants a blast of water in it's face).

You could always start feeding it and domesticate it. ;)

All good advice from Animal Control. I find that if you remail calm and show them the way out, they will take it ASAP. Possums, racoons, birds, bats ususally just need to be guided to the right door or window.

Unless you have something that has actually taken up residence in your attic or chimney - then you have trouble that requires professional help.

One more thing - if a bat, raccoon or fox bites or scratches you, get the rabies vaccinations done. Just do it. I used to work as the rabies coordinator for a health dept, and we had many positive rabies cases in those animals. Cats and dogs are unlikely to carry it, unless they are feral, but better safe than sorry. Rabies kills you.

My family once got a full litter of opossums in the house that hid underneath our furniture--even tangling themselves into the mechanical underbelly of a recliner. Our small dog informed us of the intruders, and my mum caught each of them with a net that we would use for birds that flew into our sunroom. And speaking of the sunroom, we have gotten every denomination of wild animal in there since we leave the door open a crack for the dog. We've had rodents, birds, hawks, other dogs, you name it.

I never leave my caged birds on the screen porch overnight, because of thieves like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljI6LtAAngc

A bat in a fraternity house was beaten to death and the frat boy had to undergo rabies shots and I think there were cruelty charges as well, so treat the intruders kindly for your own sake as well as theirs.

Cute pictures! Years ago, when I was a teenager and home alone, I discovered a baby barn owl in our den, after noticing a pair of yellow eyes peeking out of my mom's rubber tree plant! I screamed and the owl flapped its wings, but never moved from that plant. I immediately shut the door and called the dog catcher (small town), and they called wild animal control. A couple arrived with a cage and heavy gloves and quickly retrieved the owl, to release back into the woods. They explained that babies get confused when learning to fly-- this one had flown down our fireplace chimney!

Here in SoFlo one of the convenience stores was having trouble with ducks who would come thru the automatic doors, grab little bags of chips and then run like hell back out. The owner never did anything about it because it was a customer draw. (which shows you what kind of yahoos live in south florida that they have the time to hang around all day just in case ducks come in to steal chips....). At our apt complex we used to have possums open the outside water spigots for drink and to bathe; they couldn't be bothered to shut if off though. The raccoons down here are big and walk around like the sopranos....

I can one up the ducks. We had a deer enter our hospital thru the sensor activated doors. Made it to right outside the transplant ICU by the pharmacy and turned around and headed out to the parking garage where it did the most damage to cars. So..if you ever wonder why we lock down the ICUs...

I'm sure there is security video of this somewhere...probably bring it out for Christmas.

marshmallows.
raccoons are crazy for them.

:}

Last year both my lovebirds kept peeping so much so I knew something was wrong. They do this when somethings not right - or they're frightened. I walked over to them and the female was so upset I tried calming her. When I turned my head over towards my terrace there sitting on the railing was a hawk. I walked over towards the door (which was closed) and it simply sat there. Stayed there for over 30 minutes just resting. My neighbor spotted it from his terrace across me. We were both amazed at it's size and how calm it was.

A handful of years ago we shared our yard with a mother opossum, and kept finding baby possums in unexpected places. Most unexpected was in our laundry room! Three times in as many days we found the tiny babies (about the length of my hand not counting their tails) wandering around confusedly and swept them out the back door with the broom.

There was also the day I locked up my hens for the night in their little coop, and opened it the next morning to find that they had been evicted from one of their nesting spots by a baby possum all curled in a ball and sleeping peacefully.

I know this is dumb, but in my childhood homes we had squirrels get in the basement on a regular basement. An old-fashioned, bugs-bunny style trap, with a box propped up by a stick we held a string to worked every time. A little bait under the box, the squirrel goes in, you pull the string and the box goes down, trapping it harmlessly. Then we slid a large sheet of cardboard underneath the box and carried them outside. No problem.

Wow, a lot of people have stories. So I'm adding mine.
When I was a kid I awoke one night in the summer to find something flying in my room (I had a nightlight to see this clearly). Terrified, I attempted to squeak out a few "mom!"s, but the flying creature I assumed was a bird started to dive bomb me! I hid under my covers for a few minutes and when I emerged whatever it was escaped through the teeny space my door had been left open at. I jumped out of bed and ran to my parents door and whispered to my mom that there was a bird in the house. She knew better. It was a bat. We spent an hour turning on lights and opening doors and windows to get it to leave, but it continued to fly around. We decided to go back to bed but leave the lights and doors as they were and shut our bedrooms tight. In the morning there was no sign of the creature and we assumed it left. That evening, however, it emerged from its hiding spot behind our dining room armoire and began to dive bomb us in the living room. Panicked, we called the local police of our sleepy town; they had nothing better to do, apparently and sent an officer. The officer was aware that a spray with wasp killer would sedate the bat, so him and my father cautiously went to work sedating and then capturing it in a plastic bag. They then preceded to smash the poor creature in the bag with their flashlights (giant mag-lights) until it was no more. Thankfully we never had another bat in the house, but I think my mom would have found another way to deal with it.

Two autumns ago one of my sisters went on a working holiday to the Philippines and found a little wee green frog in her room one night. When she called the front desk they were very embarrassed and swept the little guy out the door--just sent him rolling and somersaulting out.

We've had pigeons in my current office building, and at a previous office the magpies and pigeons would get into terrible fights. One day I came to work and was faced with the remains of a bird at the top of a flight of stairs, right at eye level. :P

We've had mostly birds. Even had a family of robins nesting in our old outhouse on one occasion, they used to fly through the old letterbox slot in the outside door.

When I was little we had squirrels in the roof, and we had to get pest control out. They were captured, and probably killed as they were grey squirrels. (In the UK, grey squirrels are considered vermin as they have reduced the numbers of our native red squirrel quite substantially. Being classed as vermin, it is illegal to release them back into the wild.)

i was pet sitting for a guy in a beautiful hollywood condo. he would leave the window open, so his big fat lazy cat could get some fresh air. i walked in one afternoon and saw some feathers, and thought they must be from a cat toy. but by the bathroom door was a huge city-fed pigeon, dead on the floor and a very pleased fat orange cat meowing from his bed. big open space, art on the walls, expensive everything, but nothing was disturbed! the lazy cat had to have taken him down in an instant! there was barely any blood, and a little poop, but i think the pigeon met his end rather swiftly.

so im totally going to reveal my myself as a redneck...but my first thought when reading this post was "oh my gosh! i would totally keep that cute lil thing!" i'm from the country and several people i know have kept baby raccoons as pets (yes, they had them checked by a vet for rabies first) one of my old school mates had a pet coon in their house...they took it for daily walks and it was very friendly, they only problem was that they had to put baby locks on their cupboards because the lil coon would eat all their cereal while they were away at school!

Raccoons are a lot more fierce than you'd expect. You're lucky it was a little one. I had a mama and her kits steal my breakfast once. As I caught them in the act, there was a lot of defensive hissing and bluff-charging... worst sleep ever! Or... second-worst. The worst was camping and having a wolf or bear (there were tracks for both, the next morning) growl at my tent... yeah.

But that's not animal-home invasion. We had a squirrel overwinter (for a little while at least) in our family's ramshackle cabin in the woods once. It built a lovely nest in one of the fam's favourite afghans and hid itself away inside our hide-a-bed until we unwittingly disturbed it and had to chase it out of the place.

Other occurrences involved frequent mouse invasions of our baking supplies and a woodpecker territorially hammering on the stovepipe.

Thankfully those are it. My cousin's dealt with bears and elk coming in to his place(s) of residence over the years, and a friend of mine found himself between a bear and the backyard compost pile once. ... not nearly as much fun as you'd imagine!

A bird came down my chimney and flew directly into my dog's mouth! Hysterical.

(It escaped unharmed.)

I know this is dumb, but in my childhood homes we had squirrels get in the basement on a regular basement. An old-fashioned, bugs-bunny style trap, with a box propped up by a stick we held a string to worked every time. A little bait under the box, the squirrel goes in, you pull the string and the box goes down, trapping it harmlessly. Then we slid a large sheet of cardboard underneath the box and carried them outside. No problem.
chimney pipe