A Thump In The Night

Thump is an understatement. More like what just Tarzaned (Root word: Tarzan. John made it a verb the other night.) into our house?

At 3:00 A.M. we were suddenly awoken by the loudest sound. It sounded like someone crashed through our roof, took everything down with it, then continued to thrash about for a good two minutes. At first it sounded like someone was breaking in, but then it sounded like the clumsiest break-in ever. And then I heard claws. And animal sounds. John and I sat up in bed and debated over who should check it out. As if I was going to check it out. Pssh. John slowly walked out of the bedroom and tip-toed towards the bathroom--the source of the crashing. The kitties were well on their way to check things out too. The thrashing, hissing, and snarling sounds continued loudly, so John slammed the bathroom door shut instinctively. We stood there, puzzled for a long time. Now what do we do? Neither of us were going to open the door, but what do we do? Go back to bed? Ignore the thing demolishing our bathroom? What is it? WHAT is going on? I was sleeping 30 seconds ago and now I have legitimate thoughts of an alligator flailing around in the tub. C'mon, we've all seen those home videos when gators break into people's homes. John and I discussed the possibilities: cat, raccoon, opossum...gator, ha. Whatever it was had massive claws, a nasty snarl, and a crazy hissing, breathing sound. And it was going nuts. In our house.

What do people do when this happens? I felt crazy already. What would I say to explain this to get help? We trekked outside with flashlights in hand to inspect the exterior of the house. We saw nothing. I told John that we needed to call animal control. He said not at 3 in the morning. He tried to tell me to go back to bed, but our room shares the wall with the bathroom and I could not sleep with an animal hissing, snarling, and throwing things around when it was inches from my face. I tried to convince John that the animal was dead--we hadn't heard a sound for a good 20 minutes. John said he didn't want to disturb the animal in his last moments, so we had to keep waiting. John kept acting out the possible scenarios of what would happen if he did. The animal reaching up to him with his last breaths, fighting to stay alive. I agreed that we didn't want to see that. So I waited. Then I almost had John convinced that he needed to go into the bathroom until the crazy animal started up again full force. Lots of thrashing, hissing, snarling. John looked at me and said, "Yeah right, he's dead. Let's go to sleep. We will call someone in the morning." I finally caught a little bit of sleep, but was ready to make some calls by 7 A.M. We put a call into a "Nuisance Animal Trapping Service." Sounds interesting, right?

Two guys showed up soon after, one decked out in a camouflage shirt. We knew this would be interesting. The big guy with the camo shirt, had gray hair slicked back into a ponytail, and had no fear of the situation after we explained it to him. He kind of reminded me of the bounty hunter guy. He grabbed a stick with a loop on the end of it (we've all seen them in those animal rescue shows) and asked where the bathroom was. We pointed and he opened the door and ran inside. John and I just looked at one another. What was going to happen? We heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. So this is when I started to feel a bit crazy. We heard a wild beast in there just hours ago--now not even a peep. The man exited the bathroom and said, "No critter, no hole." What. The guys decided to go outside and take a look at the house. It involved looking in two crawlspace openings and getting on the roof. John's brother-in-law, Monte, showed up to help us. We were so adamant that something was in the bathroom and had to explain to Monte that they found nothing. Once they were on the roof, they eventually started to piece it together. I stayed behind and talked to the big, bounty hunter looking man, as he chatted about his strangest finds. A 10 ft. boa constrictor last week that was as wide as a football. Monkeys and lemurs finished off the list. The guys returned from the roof and found some wire fencing was pulled back and a wooden board moved. The animal gained entry there and then traveled in the walls. It gives me the creeps just thinking about it. We figured out that it probably dropped from the attic in the wall between the bedroom and the bathroom. We heard it crashing through the wall and then when it landed it was stuck and possibly hurt. It looked like it probably spent some time under the bathtub making tons of noise, and that was what sounded like it was in the bathtub.

After a thorough search, two traps were set up outside the house where the crawlspaces lead to the outside. We sat and waited. Late last night, we heard the trap. John and I headed out and saw a decent-sized opossum in the trap. We called the animal trapping guy and he came out this morning to pick up the critter. I started to feel really bad about trapping the animal and having to call the service on him. I had second thoughts about the whole thing after I found out they have to "dispose" of them. Why can't they just release them? John and I chatted and we knew it would be crazy to try to put the trap in our car and drop the opossum off to live a new life somewhere else. I had thoughts of that scene in Tommy Boy when the deer wakes up and attacks everyone in the car. Probably not a good idea. I couldn't bare to see the little critter this morning. I definitely didn't want him back in our house, but I couldn't think about the alternative either. Maybe I will get closure on the ordeal, but for now I won't focus on that part.

Tonight I look forward to a good night's rest without the chaos of an animal in my house or outside my bedroom window in a trap. Bella is very weary of the bathroom and whenever she hears a noise in the house, she army crawls by the bathroom. I hope we all don't feel on edge for too much longer. No more animals tarzaning into the house, please!