The Cost of Procrastination

So, the Nike slogan is true, my fellow procrastinators, "Just Do It".

Due to my partner and I's own procrastination, we've just forked over $2000 dollars in repair fees.

What caused all of these damages, other than our own laziness? A raccoon and her three babies.

For a month, there has been a raccoon family living in the crawl space under our eaves on one side of the house. We're renovating the upstairs, currently, and rarely step foot in the room that the crawl space entrance is in. First, we heard the raccoon, we set a trap, she got out, repeatedly. We plexiglassed the trap, we secured the trap, we got a bigger trap, a fancier trap. After about a week of this, we got out the gun. To our surprise, out come three babies. So heartwarming, and we're expecting ourselves, we couldn't bear to take care of the problem, even though we hunt each and every fall and winter.

At this point we called a humane exterminator, who informed us of the lengthy process to remove the putrid, filthy raccoon. The cost? Three to five hundred dollars. We thought this was reasonable, considering they humanely extracted the animal and her babies, sealed up the hole where she was getting in, and hazmat-style cleaned the area. But! In a bout of stupidity, and stubbornness, we decided to give it one more go. We sealed the hole where she was entering and leaving to get food with a one way door; we set more traps; we spread moth balls; we blasted music, set up a flood light. One week turned into two of setting and resetting traps...and now? We've had to give in and shoot the animal, and have the babies picked up by a local charity that rehomes orphaned wildlife.

The raccoons tore up flooring, boards, insulation, wiring, gyproc, vapour barrier, etc.

The damage? (With a healthy contractors discount.)

A $300 dollar donation to the charity. (Worth it.)
New insulation for a full side of the second story crawl space.
New flooring and wall boards for the space.
New ceiling in about a ten foot square area.
Vapour barrier, sealant.
New wiring.
New soffit.
Treatment for feces and urine of the raccoons (Like I said, Hazmat worthy.)
Fungicidal/anti odour/anti stain primer.

The grand total = $2061.40

Even though I'm extremely frugal, the cost of this doesn't bother me as much as the fact that we procrastinated so long. When you're paying for your own stupidity, there's nothing you can do but accept it. What really bothers me, is that for far less money, we could have had the raccoon humanely removed instead of "exterminating" her. Because we waited so long, the hazard level of the removal became greater, and the cost grew to $900-$2000, plus the cost of repairs.

Now, I'm not a bleeding heart when it comes to animals, but I respect anyones decision to be one. Before anyone reads my much needed (pregnant, emotional, hormonal) rant and feels the need to scold me about killing the raccoon in the end, raccoons are the cutest, most disease ridden pests imaginable, unfortunately.


So there is my anecdotal evidence showing why all of us procrastinators should work on managing our procrastination. A very smart and practical professor of mine once told me, "If you need to do something, and it takes less than fifteen minutes, do it right then. It's 1% of your day."

Never again. (Hopefully.)

Thats some expensive short-term procrastination.

Related:

Racoons don't know from cost. If you had tried to buy them out, they would have made a nest of the dollars.

I think you tried you best to work it out, but they don't call them bandits for nothing.

Thanks for sharing your unfortunate story. Good lesson as well!


iTruthSeeker

a reply to: Atsbhct

I feel you, last year I had a rotten palm tree that needed to be cut down, i got a quote of $750.00. Not bad. I put it off and did nothing about the tree. One night high winds blew it onto my house. Lol. My homeowners covered the $4200.00 and my co-pay was 1000

a reply to: Atsbhct

That is a good lesson. Enjoyed reading it

That sucks. Next time try a "Have A Heart" brand trap, with a can of sardines.
They are a cage with 2 doors that close when the bait tray is moved
I used to trap them when I was a kid. Sardines are like raccoon crack.

Occasionally, we caught a skunk in it. Not fun.

I'll read this later.