Shhh. The story isn’t over yet but clearly you see where this is going. But it isn’t necessarily over yet. The denouement has yet to be written, but more of that anon.
I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the conclusion which will no doubt be followed up with a dramatic, multi-post story plugging flea collars.
So now it was a waiting game. The attic light had been on for a day or two and that hadn’t seemed to matter. Now I had to see if the smell of the pepper would odious enough to force my friend from the attic. But again, the issue would be how to know for certain.
The thing about odors though is, they become more pungent with heat and the attic is like an oven this time of year. Actually, more like a slow cooker. With the attic fan, even on the hottest days, the temperature never gets much above 95F. And this time of year, it wasn’t likely to even reach the point where the fan’s thermostat would be tripped. So I had to hope that just the moderate heat buildup I could expect during the day would be sufficient to activate the release of noxious vapors from the ground pepper. There was certainly enough of it scattered about up there.
Since I did this at night, I would have to wait until at least the following night. Then I sat in my office and listened. I was reading the local paper on my new Galaxy Tab and I could hear some movement. It seemed stealthy and cautious. Just an intermittent bump here and thump there. But it was consistent. I hoped this meant it was working but I didn’t know. It could have meant anything.
That was almost a week ago now. Since then I haven’t heard a sound from the attic. Well, I’m pretty sure I haven’t. If I’m right and Ms. Bandito has moved on, then I need to put a heavier screen on the attic fan vent to prevent future incursions. The problem is that I have to be sure. And the problem here that I’m pretty sure that I’ve spotted her on my outdoor surveillance cameras.
I normally monitor the front door surveillance camera and at night, if anything passes in front of it the front security light goes on. So several times I’ve spotted a raccoon waddling past, going down the front walk. I’m betting I know who this is. It’s hard to make a positive ID from my old surveillance system. I really need to replace it. But my suspicion is that my friend is probably territorial and wouldn’t tolerate another raccoon intruding on her turf. Yeah, now you know I feel bitch.
So clearly she’s still in the area at the very least. For all I know, she just moved to another part of the attic where the stench isn’t that strong due to the concentration of pepper being light. That would be the area over the kitchen. She could move around up there and escape notice since I’m never in the kitchen. If I plug up the vent with screen, then she would be trapped. Worse, I could be up there working and get attacked. So now I have to know for certain.
The only way I can do that is to monitor the vent hole with a web cam – which is what I’m working on now. What I might do is have it upload to a public ftp server and let people see what is going on, if anything, but it will depend on a) how shitty the motion activation algorithm of the camera is and b) how paranoid I’m feeling, so don’t get your hopes up just yet. If I keep at it, I might be able to have something to report in a couple days, possibly sooner, but we’ll have to see. I can never really plan anything. I’ve been trying to do this for a week already and have made progress but obviously I’m still not ready.
Try something like this.
I think that sort of thing kills them with laughter. 
I finally got the camera set up and my friend returned about a month ago. Then of course I had to send the posse out again to round up my shit to figure out how to . . . ok, whatever. Here are your damn raccoon pix. 
You’re mostly going to see raccoon tail though, which isn’t nearly as cool as it sounds. B3F10-01 | X3872 | Flickr
Are you sure it is just one
So, you seasoned your attic? Does it come in Italian flavor? Maybe a nice Jamaican jerk? I’ll bet some Indian korma would work really well.
Actually no. I’m concerned that they have hacked the wifi and that the image I see on the monitor is actually on a loop, just like you see in the movies. Every couple of days I get the camera resending it’s IP address even though it hasn’t changed - as if it thinks it’s on a different network.
I’m starting to get worried. I know the kind of tech the mice have. God knows what the ground hogs are working on given how paranoid and secretive they are and now I have THIS to worry about.
Oh well. That’s what the meds are for I suppose. 
This used to be a rural area and keeping your attic au naturale was ok. Now we have to do all that hipster shit. I think the raccoon may have been a gift from the neighbors to get me to toe the line.