By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-23 18:40:58 | Updated at 2026-07-23 19:34:08
1 hour ago
Two roommates in San Francisco had never expected a family of raccoons would move in with them without signing a lease … but that’s exactly what happened.
Isaac Brodkin and his roommate heard scratching noises for months coming from inside the walls of Brodkin’s room.
The duo quickly notified the property managers—Kenney & Everest Real Estate of San Francisco—who sent an inspector to investigate the matter. The inspector confirmed that the noisemakers were raccoons.
Despite an exterminator spraying a repellent, “The sound just kept getting more and more intense, just like a horror movie, and I couldn’t sleep,” Brodkin told ABC News.
They tried getting a pest control company to help, but that didn’t work. Brodkin’s roommate managed to get Animal Control to come to the apartment, where officers cracked open the wall and found a mother raccoon peeping out through the opening.
The mother raccoon had entered an exterior wall opening in their building, a former Zen Buddhist temple. After giving birth inside the wall, she managed to break through and enter Brodkin’s bedroom.
“Oh, there’s one. Hi there. Did I disturb you?” one officer is heard saying as the mother raccoon stuck her face through the hole. “That’s the mommy. Hi, Mommy,” two Animal Control officers could be heard saying in a video, ABC News reported.
Brodkin and his roommate decided to leave the apartment in June after they could no longer tolerate living there in fear. “The worst thing that could happen is the animal breaks through the ceiling and, like, drops on my head while I’m sleeping,” Brodkin told the news outlet.
It was a critter conundrum that ended in heartbreak. An exterminator called to remove the raccoons from the apartment made a grim discovery: the mother had fallen and become trapped, failing to survive the ordeal.
“I was sad about that because I felt like I’d gotten to know this family by living so close for two months,” resident Brodkin said. The baby raccoons, however, survived and moved on.
The management company provided the duo with nearly $4,600 in reduced rent and moving expenses, the news outlet reported.
