Raccoons in the House: a Metaphor of Illness and Codependency
About a week ago a family of raccoons moved into my house.
I think the first one sneaked in in the pocket of a child that I care for,
but he left it behind when he went home and I didn't notice
until it had invited the rest of its family in.
Then they moved into all my neighbors' houses too and became an infestation.
So I helped the neighbors in their raccoon removal.
One of them had a raccoon in their sewage system and everything leaked everywhere.
The other had raccoons and their heating system and it went haywire
so I brought in fans and space heaters, blankets and ice packs
to help them stay comfortable.
Eventually the raccoons chewed through the wiring and caused an electrical fire
so I tried to put it out with water from my house
although my raccoons had drunk the well dry.
The first neighbor saw what was happening and “helped” the situation
by going into detail about their sewage problem
and tsk-ing their tongue at the heating disaster.
Eventually I called the fire department and
- instead of tending to the raccoons in my own house -
I sat and watched as teams of firefighters tried to put out the neighbor’s fire,
as I watched their house from every angle.
Today one of my own outbuildings
- the one who has built an enormous fence between us -
yelled the across the fence to say
they needed help with their crumbling foundation,
but I couldn't see it because the fence was so very high.
They fell short of blaming me for the foundation problem,
but I could hear it in their voice.
My other outbuilding has an attic full of bats that are relatively well maintained,
but sometimes guano falls through the ceiling into the main floor,
and particularly into the bedroom, and there are snakes
that come in and enjoy that oozy warm environment,
then complain about the rustling of the bats in the attic.
Today I spent some time - about 20 minutes - assessing my own house.
There are still raccoons in my living room, and my plumbing is leaking a bit,
and my wiring is a little frayed, and part of my foundation is crumbling,
and I also have bats.
But as I sat in my house all I could think about at first
was the others and how I could assist them.
I'm going to start by calling myself an exterminator,
placing traps, calling a plumber and an electrician,
building a few bat houses in the yard,
maybe learning how to pour concrete.
My neighbor with the plumbing problem now has opossums.
She wants to tell me about their horrible teeth and report to me their every move.
She wants me to look out the window at the burning neighbor and tell her how it looks,
though she has windows of her own.
I have not looked at the burning neighbor today.
I am trusting the firefighters are doing their job
and that my pissing on it will not help in any way.
I am tossing messages in bottles over the high fence
with references to foundation builders.
I'm demonstrating how to build bat houses
and exit doors for snakes.
But mostly I need 20 minutes
to sit in the middle of my own house
and assess the damage.
~Andrine de la Rocha
29 May 2023