The Coons

Duke is a home builder and 3 weeks ago he was prepping to take a home buyer on their final walk of the home to find any small issues and address them. He noticed some debris but just cleaned it up before the walk and decided to address it after the walk. Walk went wonderful, buyers excited and happy. That afternoon he investigated the debris and found the cause....an animal in the attic. So he gets traps and sets them in the attic....for 1.5 weeks he gets nothing and is spending tons of time on the Internet researching raccoons, rats, possums to ID the culprit. Finally it is determined it is a raccoon. So last Saturday on our way home from Kerrville we check the trap and SUCCESS a raccoon....so we load the raccoon in the car( my moms borrowed car) and drive 2 miles away to undeveloped green space. Duke who was in flip flops deems his boots will be better protection and puts them on with his shorts...a fine fashion statement....and opens the trap...nada...shakes trap...nada, closes trap and looks for a stick to poke the coon to get it moving. Then decides he can't open the trap and poke so I am to poke....I am in flip flops but when I mention this he says ...your fine...I'll kick it or something if it comes near you. Thankfully brutality is not necessary and it runs away....ahhh deep sigh from Duke as the owners are to close on Tuesday. So he all but skips to the house the next day b/c he won.....NOT.... the coon came back and was NOT happy she scratched the front and back doors all up, tore off the weather stripping at the doors, tore up the bottom of the garage, and got on the roof and tore off shingles trying to get in....so he realizes this might not be over and goes to check the attic and while standing on the attic access ladder and turning to reach for the light a foot from his face is another raccoon! He screams and jumps off the ladder since the raccoon is now hissing at him and in the back saw a 3rd raccoon. So resets all traps again and for 3 days nothing, and has been given authorization to shoot them...which is not the first choice but an option at least. So during these 3 days the buyers cannot close, their interest rate lock has to be extended all their belongings are in a semi and he is picking up the tab on all of this as consolation to the buyers and has also cut 2 ft holes in every room to survey damage done, and in effort to locate the babies....and decides to re-catch mama to use her as bait. The had devoured the entire ac / duct system......NICE so he then made himself a snare, and is crawling all over the attic in welding gloves ...the mighty coon hunter. Thursday morning he catches mama again by re-opening her initial access point the dryer vent but this time it led to a trap. Excited by the progress he ran up and caught a baby....so then puts baby with mama and they are so happy they purred. Then he puts mama and baby in the attic surrounded by traps and Saturday morning had success and caught the other baby...which was great b/c we were beginning to think it was dead. So he brought them home for the kids to see and they were cute but dang they can do some damage. He then took them to our land and released them so there is nothing to damage but space to run.But mama tried to get in the last round and bit Dukes glove...did not hurt him at all but shook the glove pretty good...... Good luck coons and good riddance