Friday, April 30, 2010

We're at war...

with one of these
 Look I think brushtail possums are cute, but not cute living in the bedroom wall.  Our possum originally got in months ago through a gap that was created between the old and new roof.   After many nights of scratching in our bedroom wall, we blocked up that hole one evening when the poss went out. 

Then our ducted air conditioning was put in, and our split system was removed.  The split system had a drain onto our carport and the hole was blocked up with a piece of metal.  Well cheeky possum pushed and scratched at the metal until he got back in.  That hole is above where I sleep.  So yet again we block the hole when the possum goes out one night.  The first attempt at blocking was thwarted.  The possum pulled a brick that was wedged into the hole out of the wall.  So the next night Col put a piece of wood over the hole with a pile of bricks in front of it until he gets a chance to screw the piece of wood in.  It's the kind of job where he needs daylight, so can't be done when he gets home from work in the evening.

Thought the problem was solved, but this morning I was awoken by the sound of scratching.  That little bugger is try to scratch a hole into the eaves (see the area circled in red!).
possumhole

So at 6am I was outside, throwing bits of gravel at the possum to make him go away. It took 4 or 5 times of him scampering away until he finally gave into my coercion. Col's going to patch that hole this afternoon. I am going to pressure him to put a box up in a tree for the possum. We really should have done that last time!

5 comments:

Natalie Hennekam said...

Oh very frustrating.
I agree with the box in the tree ... hopefully then he'll make himself a lovely home away from the house!
Good luck - they're lovely animals to have around ... just not quite so close :-)

Unknown said...

I was going to suggest a tree box. We used to have the same problem in our very rustic country rental.

There was a hole in the ceiling in the corner of one room and there was often a tail hanging through it.

They don't smell very nice, and their claws scratching on the inside of the wall is worse than fingernails down a blackboard.

Karen said...

There's a product called "poss of" that you can use for plants - I don't know if it would work on buildings but it might be worth a try!
My husband very unkindly says "the only good possum is a dead possum" - they do very unkind things to our car I must say!

VaderKip said...

Moederkip and I used to live with some cute possumshe friendshipheho used our 3 side wooden verandah as a racetrack. They were cute to be with, but drag racing at 3am did test the friendship :-)

Steffi said...

Oh...that´s interesting!Good luck...I don´t know this australian animal but is it dangerous?