Throughout my childhood in French's Forest we had brush-tailed possums living in the roof. Occasionally they'd run across the ceiling, sounding like a rugby team in the locker room with metal studded boots. I reckon they're cute. We always referred to the possums as "George" & would occasionally have to rename one as "Georgina" when we found them carrying their young.
My wife isn't thrilled at the idea of possums living in our roof...
...and hence, my mission (if I choose to accept it) is to rid our roof of possums. Not kill them or maim them "just get them outa there!" Some people catch them in cages & take them 5 miles away (so they don't find a way back) & let them go in the bush. I'm very happy to have possums living in the backyard if I can't have them in my roof so I don't want to do this. (I've since been told that this will get them killed, as possums are a territorial animal, so don't do this - thanks Gary) I built a hutch for them out of an old wooden "pallet". It's up a gum tree but they don't seem to take much interest in this. Anyway,
Round 1.
I found out how they get into the roof space. Where the flat tin roof of the extension goes into the tiled roof of the original house, they get under the eave & push & it lifts & they can get in & out. I spot them doing this one night & block it with a roughly shapen piece of wood hooked over the tile with nails protruding.
Round 2
A few weeks later, we hear them again. Damn! I spot their entry/exit as being the other side of the tin roof in the same manner. I didn't think they could get to this spot but I see one climbing down the bracket for the T.V. aerial. Crafty bugger! I block this with a similar piece of wood.
Round 3
Some weeks later we hear them again. I can't seem to work out how they got in but I suspect that the only way is into the garage (under the main roof space) & up through the manhole (I don't keep the cover on because I'm often up & down the permanent ladder as I store junk in the roof space). Our garage door has a small hole cut into it where the people before let their cat have access to the garage.
I don't want to block the holes straight away, as having a dead possum in the roof is MUCH worse than having live ones.
I suspect thet they'll come out of the roof in the early evening to feed & one Monday night, I have the time to keep an eye on things. I wrapped up a towel & put it in front of the hole in the door. They'll have to push this out of the way to get out so that'll be the "trip wire". I put one of my short range transceiver radio's next to it & set it to VOX so that any noise (such as a towel knocking over this radio) will make it transmit. I then kept another of these radios with me so I'd know when one had gone out. Click, click as the squelch breaks. Aha, one has gone, confirmed by the towel being moved. What will I do about the second one? If I set it up the same way, the one who came out may just go back in. No good. Well, I'm in the garage pondering what to do when hey, the second possum sticks his head through the manhole looking at me. After a 5 minute standoff he decides its a bit dodgy going too close to humans & moves back elsewhere in the roof.
I thought that I had to do something about the hole in the door so at this point I hastily nailed a piece of wood over it leaving only two very small gaps, maybe 4cm by 11cm. The possum could still get out by my leaving the door ajar. I relocated my transmitter to the top of the manhole so that I'd hear the possum & would know he's on his way to come down the ladder. On top of this, I had to stand guard over the hole in the garage door (from the kitchen - armed with a torch & a radio) to make sure the first one didn't go back in! Half an hour later I hear the scraping sounds coming through the radio. You bewdy, here he comes. 5 mins later I hear a scratching sound at the garage door. I go out to find the door has swung shut because of a breeze. Damn! I opened it & wen't back to waiting. 10mins later I hear this almighty crash that not only comes through the radio but can be heard by all the neighbours (11pm! Oh blast!) I went in to find a bewildered possum on the floor wndering what happened. I worked out fairly quickly the trail of disaster. he had come down my permanent ladder (bolted to the wall) & stepped onto another ladder that was just leaning (89 degrees?) against the first. His mass pulled the centre of gravity over the point of no return & Crash, Bang! anyway, at this stage he was about to shoot back up the ladder so I grabbed something to throw at him. In a confused state he walked back from the ladder, so I raced over to it, climbed up & shut the manhole tightly. I climbed down & chased him out! Excellent! I win! I was so excited I ran in to tell my wife of my heroic exploits & my hi-tech HAM radio snooping to be greeted by zzzz'z. What a let down. I was awake until 1:45am till I was tired enough to go to sleep.
No more possums. I didn't have to kill/maim/capture them. I'm a hero...
or so I thought.
Round 4
The very next morning (5:50am) I awake with a start as there is this terrific crashing, banging & smashing of glass. My wife, getting dressed to go for a walk, says "I think they're back". Talk about heart breaking. I went out to find out what the heck was going on. Opening the door I found stuff everywhere over the floor. Broken jars, turps, paint brushes, clothes basket, broken containers of all sorts of liquids spilled everywhere. I went over to the manhole. Thank God, the cover was still wedged tightly on. I found one of the possums hiding behing camping gear on top of the blue cupboard next to the ladder. Hmmmm. What happened? It seems that the possums can go down the ladder easily but since it is almost vertical & 30cm between steel steps instead of climbing the ladder directly they prefer to jump onto the laundry tubs (back of the garage), jump to the top of the dryer, from their, jump to the little cupboard, walk along 12 ft of wood hung in storage & from their either rest on the blue cupboard or up the ladder.
At least they hadn't gotten into the roof! I went back in the house to tell my wife what happened & upon coming back out I hear a scraping sound like the possum was back in the roof! Oh my God, How? Closer investigation reveals he has headed down the crack between the wall & the cupboard trying to retreat from me. I got a torch & found him, nails trying to dig into the fibro walls, wedged 4 ft off the ground in a 15cm crack. "Struth, am I going to have to unpack the whole cupboard just to move it to let him out???" By this time, I was starting to lose it. The buggers are pretty good climbers, I thought, so I grabbed the nearest prodding stick (a 50cm long radio aerial no less!) & prodded him in the bum. He started climbing all right. He stopped on the top of the cupboard but with some more prodification he took off into the backyard.
On reflection I can see the folly of thinking I'd won the war. There is often the Victor & the Vanquished but in reality everyone has suffered greatly! The worse bit is that I really love these most inquisitive & shy of God's creatures.
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