Tag Archives: possums

Hello possums! The Age Breaking News!

Posted on August 24, 2008 | 1 comment

Well, thank God it’s not just me! I read in today’s Sunday Age that brushtail and ringtail possums are invading roofs and gardens across Melbourne!

Ron Smith woke one night thinking his Hawthorn house was being robbed.  He crept downstairs and found two possums helping themselves to a fruit bowl in the kitchen.  That’s when he remembered leaving a skylight open.

One escaped through the skylight, but the other “got stuck behind the stove” he recalls. Removing it required an electrician, a pest controller and $350.

Only $350!!  I’ve been ripped off!!! I was charged $500.00, and as you will remember, they were still getting in!

I think I’m writing in the past tense.  I decided, after a few nights,  to bring the bananas back out of the fridge where I had been hiding them and to chance the fruit bowl again, to see if they were still coming in.  So far, touch wood and May Jennifer Get Rheumatic Fever (the family invocation against illfortune- mind you, Jennifer had Rheumatic Fever last about 48 years ago but it just goes to show how lucky we are in this family)- the possums haven’t been back.  But as soon as they are, no more Ms Nice Guy! I’m going to get value out of my $500 and six month’s guarantee.  I too, will again have a man on the roof with his bum sticking up.

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Possum Magic

Posted on August 6, 2008 | 2 comments

The residence of the Resident Judge has, for some months, been under a vermin attack. Last year it was the mice, then -worse still- the rats in the ceiling.  A couple of weeks ago possums took up residence in the roof. Exterminators and removers have been called, and the place SHOULD be vermin free.

But it’s not.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a chewed banana on the kitchen floor.  I thought that one of our four FOX TERRIERS (supposedly renowned for their vermin-chasing propensities!) had brought it in.  A little later, I noticed that after I had used half a banana on my cereal in the morning, the other half had been eaten while still in the fruit bowl.  Alert now, AND alarmed, I started to scrutinize the fruit bowl more carefully. Yes- the tops of pears had been nibbled; whole bananas would be eaten leaving the empty skin still attached to the others in the hand; bananas would be taken out of the bowl and left on the bench.

We thought they might be getting in through the dog door (specially cleaned of doggie snot for this photo lest you think me slovenly)

Could they be getting in through the doggie door? Well, maybe…. so I’ve taken to locking it. The first night I locked it so that they could get out but not come in (lest they already be here in the house).  At 1.30 a.m. I could hear them bashing at the door.  After a brazen banana heist that night, I took to locking it completely- no ingress or egress! I’ve tested it- they can’t be getting in through here. But at 5.00 a.m. this morning they were back…

How are they doing it? The dog door is locked.  All the cupboards are shut- and I can’t believe that they’d shut the cupboard doors after them (after all, no-one else in the house does).  The airconditioning and central heating vents have not been disturbed.  The dogs are not sniffing anywhere.

My daughter’s room has a sliding door, is locked and has no visible space under it.  The bathroom and toilet don’t seem to have any visible sign of entry. There’s just one room…at the end of the passage.  My only subscriber knows what’s behind the door. COULD they be squeezing under the door and getting in from there???

So here we are: flummoxed by a possum.  I have taken to leaving some banana outside on the porch, but last night it REJECTED it!! Self-serve, it seems is the way to go.

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Posted in Life in Melbourne

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