The Opossum Saga: part 2

The other day we had just gotten up and we heard scratching noises from the plumbing access where we think the opossum was living. I had already returned the RC car for lack of power, but I still had the camera equipment, so I put the camera in the crawlspace access with some food to maybe entice him out. It turns out there are more critters that enjoy our crawlspace.

I have kept the camera trained on the access hole recording any activity (except for the hours of 2-4pm when the disc runs out of room). As of this writing, I still haven't seen the second critter leave, so it could very well still be down there.

I did some searching online for what foods might make good bait for either of the two visitors that were now occupying our crawlspace, and decided to set the trap the next day when we got back from school.

As you can tell, we got the opossum. Here are some closer color shots of our nocturnal nuisance.

He pretty much kept his mouth open like a baby bird looking for food. It was kind of creepy.

You're probably thinking, "what were you going to do if you caught the other creature?" To which I would respond that I didn't really think about the fact that since I had to turn the trap various directions to get it in meant that I would have to do the same thing to get it out, all while trying to keep a live animal comfortable enough to be nice to me. So lets just say I got lucky in catching the opossum.

The Opossum Saga

For those of you who aren't aware, we have an opossum living under our house. We were first aware of it last September when I (Ben) was home alone one night (I think Jodi was down south meeting sofia), and I heard some scratching noises coming from a plumbing access in our wall. I removed the cover, and my face was about 10 inches from a hissing, stinking, teeth-bearing opossum. I put the cover back on as fast as I could, and hoped that would be my last encounter with that creature.

Well, in the last month or so, we've been hearing more scratching noises and smelling something like dead fish - it must be back. Well, I was not excited about another face-to-face encounter, so while Jodi's parents were here, I mounted an infrared camera in the plumbing access hole to be sure we were in fact dealing with an opossum. This is what it captured:

So it is an opossum. We decided that live-trapping it would be the best thing, but first some reconnaissance was needed in our crawl space. As I mentioned, I was not excited about coming face-to-face with it again, let alone entering its domain under our house. I was willing, however, to send in a scout. Enter: the Opossumator.

The only lifted truck I will ever buy. $30 at Toys r Us, and that includes an "accidental damage" policy. But it needed some modifications.

Like a front-mounted infrared camera:

A rear-mounted wireless video transmitter:

And an underbelly battery pack for the above:

The completed project is hereby dubbed the Opossumator:

On Friday we sent the opossumator on its mission under our house. Unfortunately, $30 doesn't buy you much of an off-road RC car, and it got stuck after about 45 seconds and I had to crawl under the house anyway to retrieve it. but at least I was armed with the knowledge that the opossum wasn't within the first 8 feet of the access hole.

We also got some footage of the vehicle navigating the less-taxing terrain of the interior of our house, but I opted not to include that.

So in the end, the Opossumator was a bit of a letdown. But I think I will attempt to add a microphone at use it at school somehow. I'm not sure how yet.

As for the opossum, we still plan to rent a live trap, and probably put it where I got into the crawl space and hope for the best. We'll keep you posted (pun intended) with any more progress.