Sabrina Raven is used to animals invading her house. Living just outside Brisbane, Australia, she has had all sorts of uninvited wild visitors — from blue-tongued lizards to snakes, magpies and possums.
So when Raven was in the bathroom a year ago and noticed something fuzzy on the ceiling, she was not entirely surprised. “I thought it was a giant furry caterpillar or a hatched bunch of baby spiders,” Raven said. “Then, I looked closer and realized it was a patch of fur. I poked it (probably not the smartest idea in hindsight) and it was fluffy and soft.”
Raven immediately knew that her latest houseguest was a brushtail possum. The little nocturnal marsupials have been invading her home for the past 20 years, but she’s always managed to find and block off their holes.
“We have a lot of the brushtails around where I live. They make some awful noises for something so cute,” Raven said. “The racket of the possums jumping on the roof off the trees after dark is crazy.”
Then she saw a little claw and knew her guess was correct.
Raven tirelessly searched her home for holes, but she couldn’t figure out how the latest possum was getting inside. She also knew that closing up the hole that the possum had chewed in the bathroom ceiling was fruitless, as she’d just make another.
Now, after a year of living together, Raven and the brushtail possum, whom she’s nicknamed Floof, have become somewhat friendly. “Most days I see her, it’s just a tuft of fluff, which she lets me pat,” Raven said. “They’re soft like rabbits.”
Floof is surprisingly considerate for a possum, letting Raven get some rest at night.
“She’s pretty quiet compared to the others,” Raven said. “Occasionally, she gives a screech just before she leaves or when she returns.”
Raven plans to build some possum nesting boxes and place them around her yard to convince Floof to move out. But until then, she doesn’t mind sharing her house with the adorable possum — most of the time.
“It’s too hard to be annoyed with something so cute,” Raven said.
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