I’ve been under thousands of homes/ buildings in my 13 years of doing this. When I go into a crawl space, I don’t think about much. Especially if I’m trying to locate and remove a dead animal. I think the fact that I’ve been under so many has caused my brain to not react to much. It’s almost as if it’s second nature or if I have horse blinders on. This particular house was different. I could definitely smell the carcass. That body decomposing smell is unmistakable. I locate the carcass fairly simply. It’s just lying on the ground 20ft from the access. I put it in a bag with the dirt it was laying on, spray some antimicrobial bleach on the area and start to turn around to leave. Then I see 2 raccoons under with me.
A little shocking at this point. It now dons on me that these raccoons probably killed the opossum that I’m removing. The customer said that she heard a little something under there but I assumed it was the now dead animal. Not a fight where one animal would end up dead. So the raccoons were a little scared to see me. They weren’t full grown adults. They weren’t as scared as I was at first. The only things I had with me were a flashlight, bleach and a bag with a dead opossum in it, so there wasn’t much I could do. They let me leave without a fight and I just set traps.
I’m sure we’ll get them soon. When I first started, I was so aware of my surroundings (probably because I was a little scared). Over the years, it’s like I’m numb to what’s around me. Of course I was startled at first, but really, it’s just another day at the office for me. Off to the next one.
