The Raccoon Invoice

For several nights leading up to April 29, I was sleeping terribly and had no idea why. I was waking up at 3am, tired during the day and canceling plans, and I blamed myself. Maybe it was the true crime podcasts, with all those stories of things lurking in the dark. So on Tuesday, April 28, I canceled plans to meet a friend. I don't know why I'm so bugged out, I thought. I'll skip the podcast tonight, wake up early tomorrow, get some sunlight and exercise.

I slept poorly anyway, and the next morning the answer was on the balcony.

Wednesday morning, April 29, I got up early to do Ring Fit in the living room. To get some sunlight in, I opened the patio door and immediately noticed my balcony furniture had been moved. My first thought was a burglar. I grabbed my phone to take a picture of the evidence. That's when I saw her: mama raccoon, laid out flat on my balcony like she owned the place, and as far as she was concerned, she did.

This was one hour before I needed to leave for work. I immediately googled how to safely get a raccoon off your apartment balcony. Pest control said they couldn't help, and they basically told me I had to "draw first blood" before they'd get involved. So I researched, and it turns out raccoons don't like bright lights or loud music.

I started playing music. The music I happened to be listening to was Noah Kahan. I stood there for a moment, flashlight in hand, and thought: this is not disruptive music. This raccoon is not leaving because of Noah Kahan. I switched to EDM.

The EDM sort of worked, and mama raccoon moved off the balcony proper but retreated into the balcony closet, hiding under a wicker piece I kept out there. I got her to move again, she made it to the railing and she started hissing at me. And then I heard it: chirping from inside the dark closet, from baby raccoons I couldn't even see, which meant I had a whole family out there.

I closed the door and stepped back. She was hissing at me because she was a mother protecting her babies. It took four more days, nine phone calls, one escalation to corporate, and an offsite pest control company to finally remove them, humanely, on May 3.

Every metric below is real, pulled from Garmin and the Life in Pixels tracker. Photos are mine.

Apr 19–23
Sun–Thu

The week before looks uneven and unremarkable.

Sleep moved around the way it sometimes does and body battery sat low, and nothing about the week stood out, which is why I had no idea what was coming. I still do not know exactly when they moved in.

sleep scores: 86 → 69 → 78 → 74 → 93 body battery: 5–15, then 23 on Apr 23 HRV 47 ms on Apr 23

Apr 24–28
Fri–Tue

Something is wrong and the cause is unknown.

Sleep dropped to 80 and then 57, body battery hit 5 on Apr 25 and stayed there, and on Apr 26 and 27 I felt bad all day without knowing why, so I blamed true crime podcasts and late nights. Sleep hit its floor of 53 and HRV dropped to 26 ms on Apr 28, and that Tuesday I canceled plans with a friend because I was too exhausted and too "bugged out" to go, then skipped the podcast and went to bed early, planning to wake up and exercise instead.

body battery: 5, 5, 5, 5 sleep floor: 53 HRV floor: 26 ms cause: unknown

Apr 29
Wed

I wake up early to exercise and find a raccoon.

I was doing Ring Fit in the living room and opened the patio door for sunlight, saw the furniture had been moved and thought it was a burglar. Then I saw her, mama raccoon, completely settled in, one hour before work. I tried Noah Kahan, I tried EDM and I tried a flashlight, and she hissed at me while I heard babies chirping from the dark closet. The leasing office and pest control were called, a trap was set that day, and the raccoon ate the bait and left without triggering it.

Cause of poor sleep: identified, on the fifth straight day at the floor.

body battery 5 trap: outsmarted

Wednesday morning, and the answer to several nights of bad sleep was hiding behind a patio chair.

Apr 29 · mama raccoon confirmed with babies, nested in the balcony wicker basket.

Apr 30 – May 2

They are still there, with partial recovery and nine phone calls.

Body battery climbed slightly (13, 21, 11) and sleep improved to 82, 84, 84, but the raccoons were still present. I left voicemails for leasing, visited the office in person and called pest control, and when the pest company only inspected and quoted removal for next week, I escalated to the apartment's corporate office and a second trap was set.

sleep 82–84 body battery 11–21 resolution: pending

May 3

The raccoons are caught and removed.

Offsite pest control arrived and removed mama raccoon and the babies, and I expected to sleep that night. Body battery was 5 and sleep score was 61, because the nervous system did not receive the memo.

body battery: still 5 sleep: 61

May 3, 11:50am, eviction complete, and she looks exactly as tired as my Garmin data.

May 4–10

Nobody warned me about the 8-day recovery lag.

Body battery climbed slowly (6, 23, 18, 26, 18, 11, 17) and sleep crept up (71, 85, 80, 86, 79, 66, 80), non-linear and two steps forward, one back. The body keeps the score longer than you'd expect, even after the threat is completely gone, and this is the part the data made visible.

8 days to stabilize body battery: 5 → 17 sleep: 61 → 80

May 10+

I'm back to baseline.

Sleep scores are back up to 80, body battery is climbing and morning workouts have resumed, this time without wildlife. True crime podcasts are fully exonerated, and the raccoon left no forwarding address.

sleep back to 80 exercise resumed podcasts: not guilty