Raccoons!!

So a couple months ago I heard a scratching noise in the walls of my bedroom--usually early in the morning when I was still half-asleep so I would end up forgetting about it by the time I really woke up.

Then I started hearing the noise in the ceiling of our family room in the afternoons--furious digging/scratching sounds that sounded like a largish animal. I promptly called a "wildlife" place to come and set a trap for our little friend and I told them I was pretty sure it was a raccoon--it just sounded like a raccoon!

So they set a trap but a couple of weeks went by...nothing. The scratching episodes continued. Then one night, just as American Idol was starting, we spotted "our" raccoon in the apple tree right outside the family room window. It was heading towards my daughter's discarded Salerno butter cookie that I had thrown over the fence before we got in the car that day.

Realizing that whatever the wildlife guy had put in the trap wasn't working, I made a trail of Salerno butter cookies from the apple trees to the trap. Smart, right? Well, we did catch this:
Apparently we had more than one visitor. Oh, and turns out this was a mother opossum with a "pouch full of babies" so really way more!

Another trap was set in a different location for the raccoon and I told the guy to put butter cookies in it--but he just looked at me like I was crazy. It's been about a month since that trap was set...and nothing...the raccoon is way too smart.

But the opossum babies got me thinking that perhaps the raccoon was making a nest in our family room because she was haing babies too...

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago...Don (husband) and I were watching Into the Wild (a really great movie, btw) and I heard a little whimpering sound from the ceiling--raccoon babies!

The dumb thing is that I have made no move to evict them (except for the trap that sits empty). I guess I feel a bond with the mother and feel guilty about disrupting her...but then I started researching raccoons on the web and apparently the majority of raccoons are infested with this parasite that doesn't hurt them but is fatal to humans! So if this worm gets into a human it "wanders around" and ends up in your brain or your eyes--no joke!!

So now I'm desperate to get the raccoon family out. In fact, I'm calling the wildlife place now! Will update...