life is complicated

The good news is, there's a small hole in the pipe up to the shower, but the pipes to the tub is still sound

 

The bad news is there's a possum in the pipe chase. 

 

Yes, an opossum. I had animal control out, she tried to grab it, it moved too far in. She left a live trap and her number and told me to get the stinkiest wet cat food I could and bait the trap with that. Then it moved BACK after she left, the plumber gloved up and said he'd try to grab it. He's got the live trap in there and my hope is he can stuff it in there and we can call Animal Control to come get it.

 

My life is a farce.

 

I don't know that I can get the shower pipe replaced today or not, because of the possum

 

the only consolation is the plumber said I should still be able to use the bath.

If he can't grab it, I guess I bait the trap and hope, and check it regularly to be sure I didn't trap one of the local cats instead, which seems a likelihood. 

The added complication: a friend reminded me possums have fairly weak jaws and it might be some other critter that chewed the pipe. I don't know. I've lived here 20 years without this problem. I really HATE using poison baits for rats/mice but I may have to at this point. I don't know. I'm so tired. I've slept badly the past few nights for worrying about this and I also have an allergic headache today

Edited to add: Sound of a Sawzall now so that tells me he's just going ahead to fix it, possum or no. So I WILL have a shower tonight. And I can go buy stinky cat food after my class and hopefully trap the thing.

Anyway, “Ma’am, were you aware there’s an opossum living in your crawl space?” is a sentence you never want to hear.