This true tale is from November 2010.
Monday was a rainy, cold afternoon. Sofia and I arrived home at 5:15 and it was already dark. We nervously scanned the garage, looking for clues that would tell us if the possum was still on the premises. We saw no scat, nothing where it shouldn't be. I poked around with a broom and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Relieved, we went into the house, happy that the possum had gone home to its family through the crack we had left in the garage door all day. We closed the garage and were proud that we had not let any cats in the garage, it was free of animals.
Sofia went to bed at 7:30 and I settled in with my book. At 8:30 I heard a suspicious sound. Grumbling, I opened the utility room door to the garage. To my horror, there on the railing sat the possum, looking right at me. I shrieked and slammed the door. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the broom, flung open the door and pushed the button to open the garage door. The possum was scuttling down the railing. I gave it a huge push with the broom, hoping to give it enough momentum to go tumbling out into the night. Instead, it landed on the cement with a splat and then scurried to the other side of the car. I could hear it rustling somewhere. I hesitated around the end of the car, worried that it would spring at me and bite my leg through my flannel pajama pants. It was a narrow spot between the side of the car and the wall, lined with tools, bags of fertilizer, and a potting bench covered with assorted gardening supplies. I couldn't see any sign of the possum. Poking with my broom, I shuffled along next to the car. Seeing nothing, I discouragedly went back into the house.
I decided to use the Hansel and Gretel approach. The possum had been in the garage for 2 days without food, so by all rights it must have been hungry. I took some Almost Alfredo from the refrigerator, inhaling a big whiff of the dinner we had eaten. Surely this would attract a hungry animal! I placed some on the inside of the garage door, and some outside, planning to close the door once the possum had followed the food outside. I stood at the top of the stairs, the garage door opener remote in one hand in my pocket, the other hand holding the broom. After 15 minutes I turned off the light. After 15 more minutes, I turned on the light in disgust. I put a paper bowl of dried cat food outside the garage door to further entice the hungry animal. I decided to move my car out of the garage so that I would be able to see the whole garage. After backing it out, I resumed my post at the top of the stairs. I imagined I could hear tiny squeaks, and I hoped it wasn't the quiet peep of possum babies. After another 30 minutes, I was tired, stiff and cold. I still had neither seen nor heard my enemy. I swept the food out the door, pushed the cat food so that it was outside the door, and closed it. I refused to feed that animal as long as it was hiding in the garage.
Entering the house, I left my flannel pajama pants on the washer, convinced that they had possum germs on the hems. I put on my robe and slippers after thoroughly washing my hands, and sat back down with my book. By now it was nearly 10:00 but I was no longer tired. I dove back into my Victorian mystery, but all the while, thoughts of the possum and its hiding place were in the back of my head.
After a half hour, I took off my glasses and set down the book. In the utility room, I quickly pushed open the door to the garage and flicked on the light. There was my prey, cowering in the front corner. Upon seeing me, it scurried behind the ShopVac. I tightened the belt on my blue fleece robe and quickly looked around for shoes. My tall rubber boots were right inside the door, so I kicked off my down booties and slid my stocking feet into them. Armed with the broom, I crossed the garage, saying, "I see you now! You can't get away from me this time!" I poked the nearby fertilizer bags with the broom. There was a small movement to the left. I pushed the broom hard into the sawhorses, which tipped backward into the soaker hose I had coiled up behind them. I spotted the scaly little tail and black hairy body directly behind the ShopVac. I grabbed one of the accessories that was sticking out of the base and wheeled the unit toward me. The possum huddled in the corner of the wall and the cabinet. I grabbed a long pole, originally designed to extend and assist in the changing of light bulbs, although I couldn't extend it. I poked at the possum and it hissed at me. I held a push broom in front of my feet, feeling safer behind the small barrier that it provided. I poked again at the possum, this time with my pole and my other broom. It bared its teeth at me and snarled. I managed to poke it towards the door, but instead of running out into the cold night, it opted to hide in the corner, only one foot from freedom. Also in the corner were numerous poles of various sizes, tiki torches, belly dance sticks and solar lights on stakes. The possum was hiding in the teepee created by these leaning against the wall. I tried for probably 10 or 15 minutes to encourage that animal to flee; poking, jabbing, thumping, pushing, pulling with every garden tool to which I had access. This included a rake, a hoe, two brooms, a long bamboo pole (which I think had some mystery poop on the handle, I discovered that the smelly way), a snow shovel, and the light bulb changer. The possum growled, hissed, bared its teeth, and snarled, but never played dead. The entire time that I was harassing this animal, I was shouting, "Get out! GET OUT! GET OUT!!" My task was further inhibited by the garage door sensor, which is bolted to the cement wall in the same spot as that foul animal. I could not flail with abandon (as I wished) because I didn't want to break the sensor or its bracket. I am against breaking anything that I can't fix, and I am unable to affix bolts into cement. So all of the poking, jabbing, thumping, pushing and pulling had to be done with a little care and in a confined area. I don't know what finally did it, I think I moved the bucket back towards me so the possum didn't feel so trapped, but it finally came out a little from the corner and I roughly encouraged it out the door. No sooner than it ran out, I shouted, "AND DON'T COME BACK!", I pushed the remote to close the garage door, dropped all of my tools and stomped inside. I kicked off my boots, ripped off my bathrobe and put it in the wash, and went to the sink to wash away every thought of the possum.
As you finish this story, you may expect that I am quite pleased with the outcome, and satisfied that I am done with possum extraction. Note that this was, in fact, the second possum I had discovered in my garage in two days. I believe they both entered on Saturday, when I had left the garage cracked open in the hopes that the cats would exit. When I got home Saturday night, one cat was in and one cat was out. The one who was out meowed at the sliding door, so I put her in the garage. I heard her meowing desperately at one point, but I just thought she wanted in the warm house. Sunday morning when I opened the garage door, one cat quickly escaped and I thought, "as soon as the other comes out, I am shutting this door." When I saw the second cat on the deck, I closed the garage, happy at last to have no more cats in the garage. Imagine my reaction when I went in to the garage and discovered the worst smell imaginable and a possum hiding among the tools! It took about an hour of sweeping and poking and moving tools to get that one out. I happily closed the door on Sunday, not knowing that there was yet another possum trapped inside.
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