How to Get a Possum off Your Dresser

If you are woken at 4:30 in the morning by strange sounds and you discover that they are being made by a possum on your dresser, these are some steps you should consider taking to get the possum out of your house.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• possum
• poker
• basket
• cool head

1. If you are a squeamish type, and you have a roommate of some kind, wake him or her up instead. Tell your roommate there is a large rodent on your dresser and ask him to make it go away. Ask frantically. Then go into another room and sit on something high, like a recliner, with your feet off the floor.
2. The person elected to expel the possum should then do these things.
3. Wander around for twenty minutes with gardening gloves on your hands trying to find something to poke the possum with and to catch the possum in. Some possibilities are a pasta fork and a tall trash can. Another poking implement that has proven to be effective is a toilet brush. Possums can bite, so be careful.
4. Come up to the possum, and don't be too scared. The possum is probably terrified. Poke its behind with the pasta fork/toilet brush while holding the trash can in front of you. It should run or fall into the strategically-placed trash can. If it doesn't, poke it harder. You could even jab it. If it has rabies it might not want to be poked and prodded into a trashcan. So please be very careful!
5. Take the trapped possum into the living room and talk some trash to it. This usually deters them from coming back. Phrases like "your mama can't climb trees" or "your tail looks stupid" are horrible insults in the possum community.
6. Drive it out to a far away place. Far, far away. Then let it free to roam and run. Don't let it out just outside your house. It will come back in. Trust me.
7. You have successfully expelled a possum from your house. This is good. Unfortunately there will probably be many more. Possum litters can be as big as 12.
   
   Although there are other methods of possum-catching, this method has been tried and proven and you can rest assured that others have been in this predicament. Like me.

Tips & Warnings

• Note: You may find possums in other places, such as your bathtub, your living room floor, your kitchen cabinets, skittering across your feet while you are sleeping, under your bed, in your trash, dressed in your clothes, or line dancing. If you see one in one of these places, the following steps will also help you. You should also remember that possums are nocturnal, so they will probably show up at times when you really don't want to see them, like the middle of the night when you are asleep. Also possums carry rabies and fleas. Yuck.