So I have a sale offer on my house. We accepted. The inspector comes and in his report says we have a pest problem below the house, probably a skunk or opossum. My house is 4 years old and I know all the foundation vents are in place so I am perplexed. We haven't heard a sound, or smelled anything weird. So last night I got home and dropped down in the crawl space, wearing one of those white plastic coveralls.

There is no doubt at this point an animal has been in there. There is turds everywhere and the animal has walked over the HVAC pipes in a few locations. I look and there are claw marks in the plastic where the animal crossed the pipes. The claw marks are small, like a cat's or possibly an oppossums would look. Let me explain the scat, it is all bigger in diameter than a nickel, maybe a little less than a quarter. It is for the most part 3-6" long. It is everywhere, so I start rolling up the vapor barrier, and repairing the places in the insulation that need it.

Finally, I find where the animal has gotten into the crawl space. It is directly under my front door. Somehow, it pushed through the crawlspace vent, breaking the mesh completely off the plastic. I know this vent was in place when I built the porch over it in 2005. The hole is about 6x6, or standard foundation vent size.

I find a couple of bird carcasses along the eges of the crawl.

I am on my way back to the crawlspace opening with my plastic and looking around I see a pair of eyes about 15 feet ahead of me and to my left. I am dragging one of these work lights that takes a regular incandescant bulb with me. I put it up and get a quick view of the animal, and initially think "Its a cat". There are some feral cats in the area, and this definitely looks like a cat. The face is mottled grey/brown the color of a coyote in my mind.

Anyways it slinks back where I can't see it, and I really don't feel like getting much closer unarmed so I drag everything out and leave the animal in there, or to leave as it sees fit. I have some of the turds in a box and got on line to check.

It is a 100% match with bobcat turds. I mean everything, down to the coloring and size.

Is that even possible? Have any of you heard of a bobcat living in a crawl space? I have no doubt one could fit through that hole.

Well anyways tonight we are going back in with better lights and a 22, to see if we can evict it permanently. I might have a sentry out on the deck with a shotgun and buckshot, because I think it would be really cool to have a bobcat skull in my garage to go with this weird story.