Late at night, usually the evening before a very early work shift, my home is plagued by weird and creepy noises coming from outside. The year before last, (pardon my French…) they scared the shit out of me. I’ve grown accustomed to them now, and after some investigating, deducing and actually once spotting the source of noise last year, I still jump at the sounds and have to wait several agonizing minutes before hearing it again and realizing that it is just my downstairs neighbor: Mr. Opossum.
I saw him once last spring, when going to put some garbage out. My trash cans are kept right beside my back door steps, making it incredibly easy to “take out the garbage” – it involves opening the back door and flinging the bag into the can, as the wind has already claimed EVERY trash can lid that I’ve own. Or maybe Mr. Opossum has them in his home, knowing full well that even with the convenience of the stairs; he wouldn’t be able to get into my garbage with a locking lid. Or would he? I really wouldn’t put it past him. Anyway, last spring, I found him trapped in the bottom of the huge green trash bin. After jumping back 10 feet in mid-air, my heart exploding out of my chest and all of those other fun cartoony things, I ended up grabbing my broom, tipping the can over, and he walked out. It was a little heart wrenching, it was obvious in the way that he moved that he had been stuck inside the can for quite some time.

Over the months I discovered a little Opossum sized hole near the trashcans and for a while all I could think was “AMG I have this huge R.O.U.S. living underneath my home, digging through my trash and terrorizing me at 4 o’ clock every morning! How can I get rid of him?!”

^_^
But Opossums are not rodents. They are not hostile or aggressive and most of them are really cute!
I have looked into ways to get rid of it, but my heart won’t let me contact even the most “humane” of services. Not only has Hollywood distorted my initial opinion of the marsupial, it has safe guarded this guy from being released in a strange, new area where he may or may not find food and shelter from this coming winter.


If Bambi can chill out with them, so can I.

I occasionally fight with the two separate views on Opossums;

1. They are ugly, hairy creatures with fleas, pointy teeth, nasty claws and can spread diseases and germs. They live off of your garbage and are a nuisance because they don’t know how to pick up after themselves and re-tie the garbage bags.
2. They are adorable, yet wild and dirty creatures. Yet, they are still a being and going out of the way to provide it with fewer hardships in its life would not be a terrible act. And while he does dig through my trash, and probably helped harvest my garden, he also enjoys munching on real pests, like cockroaches, rats and other really gross things. Removing him would also probably mean more skunks hanging around, and we have enough in this area.

I think until he starts stealing food from my fridge or pumpin' the jams at 4 am (he lives right underneath my master bathroom, adjacent to my bedroom) I will live in harmony with Mr. O. Possum.