How to Clean up Raccoon Poop

I think the title says it all.

My boyfriend and I are planning on getting married this fall and we had this great idea to throw a party at the farm this June. We decide to use the barn and back garage as the main location for the party. It's a great space, but is in dire need of being cleaned.

The back garage has been ignored for about ten years and a family of raccoons had taken up residence in the barn, but they had access to the back garage via a hole in the wall. The raccoons had spent many wonderful days hanging out on the upper level shelves and falling through the pink styrofoam insulation that was nailed to the ceiling.

The space is very large and will fit a big truck in one bay and a full size tractor in the other if it wasn't filled with twenty years worth of hoarding. There's pounds of nuts and bolts, both new and rusted. Automotive parts, gas line, brake line and an engine lift. We found plumbing parts and door parts, bits of pipe and hundreds of dollars of scrap steel.

Many of the treasures were rusted and stuck to make shift tables. The floor, what we can see of it, is covered with bits of pink styrofoam insulation, grease, dirt, raccoon poop and dried mud. The place is a mess, but with concentrated effort we clean.

We start with sorting. Using old glassware, tupperware and tins I start to sort nuts, bolts, nails and screws by use. Wood screws, self-tapping metal screws, roofing nails, drywall screws, three inch wood screws. I find huge bolts and nuts and I categorize them based on size, shape, rustiness and if it will fit in a tractor. My drawer filled with miscellaneous parts continues to grow with bits of metal and plastic, there lies the usefulness in mystery.

I have drawers of small electrical, plumbing and hinges. Shelving full of plumbing and car parts - for cars we don't own. I wish to throw some out, but that's simply forbidden at the farm. My dad and boyfriend gang up on me when I suggest discarding a broken pipe threader. I'm afraid.

After three days of sorting I think I've found all the treasures and my sorting room is getting full. The back garage is nearly empty, except for the upper shelves and a few items in the corner. The large propane heater was ripped out with the help of my little case front end loader and discarded - a small victory for me! The ancient compressor has been relocated, but still saved because it might be worth something to somebody someday. I'm not sure that it runs.

About half of the pink styrofoam insulation from the ceiling is has been broken and destroyed by raccoons. We debate about pulling the rest of it out and the decision is made to rip it out after we investigate the upper shelves.

I am the first to "take a look" at the top shelf and I am shocked. There must be at least a foot of raccoon poop layering the plywood. I am frightened. The wood was once wet and has dried lines of urine that must have pooled on the floor. The odor is horrific and I've smelled missing dead people in the heat of July.

How was I going to clean this up?

I turn to Brent who is working on repairing the garage doors and ask for his help and opinion. He climbs up on the ladder and declares: "this a job for the tractor".

I gratefully rush out into the fresh air and fire up my little case front end loader eternally grateful I saved up the money and spent more on my tractor than on my car two years ago. I carefully position myself under the shelf as Brent slides the plywood off the two by six trying to balance it onto the bucket of the tractor.

As he pulls the shelf away from the wall I can see and hear the poop hit the floor twelve feet below. Brent looks sorry, but there's nothing we can do. He's poised on my front end loader, twelve feet in the air balancing an eight foot piece of plywood thickly layered with poop. How can I consider my life boring?

Brent manages to get the poop board onto the front of the loader and I start to lower it down. If you know anything about tractors the bucket starts to slope downward as your lower the arms, so I stop and put it into reverse and carefully make my way out the nine foot opening of the garage door.

Brent climbs off the front of the tractor and I slowly extricate the poop board outside and towards the burn pile. I am nearly choked by the smell. Brent is coughing violently and I think he might have vomited in his mouth, just a little bit.

I successfully release my load into a more appropriate location and head back for round two. There are three upper shelves and we manage to get them removed from the back garage with little damage and droppings of droppings.

The scent and visual has helped us make our decision. The pink styrofoam insulation ceiling must come down. You haven't lived until you've pulled an eight foot long piece of styrofoam down on yourself when it's covered in feces and urine. Your skin crawls and you cough in disgust.

Half way through I ask Brent if this is one of the worst jobs he's ever done and he tells me it's in his top worst five. What does this guy do when I'm not around? Worst he said was cleaning pigeon poop out of barn. Odd to think that pigeon poop is worse than raccoon and when did my life become all about poop?

It takes several hours to get all the insulation down and we stink. Horrible smells and itches cover our skin and I can't wait for a shower. We're covered in a layer of filth the likes I've never encountered and I'm grateful that we'll only ever have to do that once - I hope. I have a strange rash on my arms with abrasions all over my limbs that sting in the shower.

Standing in the empty back garage it suddenly feels bigger. With the breeze going through it doesn't smell that bad either... perhaps there is some hope here after all.

Day two and we've fixed the garage doors and have started pressure washing the entire space. This is also a top five worse job ever.

We're hoping to paint by Monday.