Keith
02-28-2006, 07:37 PM
To the north of my office are some railroad tracks and a field....full of a variety of little creatures and insects. Normally, when it starts getting cooler outside, we have spiders and scorpions that make it in to our office and try to make a home for themselves. This time, we had some visitors that were a little bigger....raccoons.
Many times when I was working by myself on weekends, I could hear something walking across the ceiling tiles above my head. You could hear the claws clicking against the tile. Kind of an eary feeling, We knew that it almost had to be raccoons, but we dismissed it, thinking they would eventually go away. well, they stayed, and to make matters worse, they got into out telephone/radio/computer room and chewed some wires apart, causing us to lose our computer system for a full day.
Time to take action. Last Friday afternoon, we found a trap, and set it up in the ceiling, just above the bosses office. The cage was big enough for a person to get in to, and it was very heavy. We baited it with sardines (of all things), and waited for a visit from our furry friend. This is where the story gets interesting......
One of our night dispatchers, Otis, was working the 4 PM - midnight shift by himself. At around 11:45 PM (15 minutes before his shift was over), he heard the sound of the trap door shutting above him. AHA...a victim. But wait, there's more......Once the raccoon was trapped, he started making a lot of noise. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, another raccoon comes tromping over the tiles above. In a desperate attempt to save his fellow raccoon, he jumped on a tile........and fell through....and landed in the middle of the floor in our office. Now, Otis ain't afraid of much of anything, so he went in to action. Usually, at night, we keep the doors to our office locked, due to security reasons. Last Friday was no exception, however, when the raccoon fell through our ceiling, he had no where to escape.
Otis jumped out of his chair, opened one of the doors and tried to coax the raccoon out. No go. Fortunately, one of the field crews had not left yet, so Otis summoned them for some help. When they arrived, they chased the raccoon all over the office. Over cubicles, across computers, across desks, and on to the top of some filing cabinets that were behind my desk. The raccoon was basically trying to find his way back in to the ceiling, but there was no opening.
When he jumped across the filing cabinets, he knocked several of my items off a shelf. They said that he almost hung himself on my blinds on my window. They finally cornered the poor animal, and captured him. They took him outside and released him back in the wild.
The other one was still trapped in the cage, so Monday morning, my boss and I, along with a few other co-workers, carefully brought the cage down from above the ceiling and loaded the raccoon in the back of a pickup. The supervisor that is in charge of our fleet shop took him out to Mustang, to an area that is perfect for a raccoon. He said that as soon as he opened the cage door, the raccoon took off, and never looked back.
Monday afternoon, my boss and I did some investigating, to try to figure out how the raccoons were getting in. While we were investigating, we were informed, that, not only did we catch two raccoons, but the employees in the warehouse caught two more.
Well, we found where the raccoons were getting in, so the gap was sealed up.
Many times when I was working by myself on weekends, I could hear something walking across the ceiling tiles above my head. You could hear the claws clicking against the tile. Kind of an eary feeling, We knew that it almost had to be raccoons, but we dismissed it, thinking they would eventually go away. well, they stayed, and to make matters worse, they got into out telephone/radio/computer room and chewed some wires apart, causing us to lose our computer system for a full day.
Time to take action. Last Friday afternoon, we found a trap, and set it up in the ceiling, just above the bosses office. The cage was big enough for a person to get in to, and it was very heavy. We baited it with sardines (of all things), and waited for a visit from our furry friend. This is where the story gets interesting......
One of our night dispatchers, Otis, was working the 4 PM - midnight shift by himself. At around 11:45 PM (15 minutes before his shift was over), he heard the sound of the trap door shutting above him. AHA...a victim. But wait, there's more......Once the raccoon was trapped, he started making a lot of noise. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, another raccoon comes tromping over the tiles above. In a desperate attempt to save his fellow raccoon, he jumped on a tile........and fell through....and landed in the middle of the floor in our office. Now, Otis ain't afraid of much of anything, so he went in to action. Usually, at night, we keep the doors to our office locked, due to security reasons. Last Friday was no exception, however, when the raccoon fell through our ceiling, he had no where to escape.
Otis jumped out of his chair, opened one of the doors and tried to coax the raccoon out. No go. Fortunately, one of the field crews had not left yet, so Otis summoned them for some help. When they arrived, they chased the raccoon all over the office. Over cubicles, across computers, across desks, and on to the top of some filing cabinets that were behind my desk. The raccoon was basically trying to find his way back in to the ceiling, but there was no opening.
When he jumped across the filing cabinets, he knocked several of my items off a shelf. They said that he almost hung himself on my blinds on my window. They finally cornered the poor animal, and captured him. They took him outside and released him back in the wild.
The other one was still trapped in the cage, so Monday morning, my boss and I, along with a few other co-workers, carefully brought the cage down from above the ceiling and loaded the raccoon in the back of a pickup. The supervisor that is in charge of our fleet shop took him out to Mustang, to an area that is perfect for a raccoon. He said that as soon as he opened the cage door, the raccoon took off, and never looked back.
Monday afternoon, my boss and I did some investigating, to try to figure out how the raccoons were getting in. While we were investigating, we were informed, that, not only did we catch two raccoons, but the employees in the warehouse caught two more.
Well, we found where the raccoons were getting in, so the gap was sealed up.