racoon under my house - help

OH MY LAND!!! you just wouldnt believe it...I heard what I thought was birds chirping - not unusual, once before, we had some birds lay some eggs in our attic and heard them chirping for months before they left and we barred their entrance. so here I was thinking we had birds under our crawl space, and looking all over the place to find where they got in, as we were looking thru the screaned vents, we see this baby racoon....oh geeeezzzz....then we circled the house about ten times to find where he had gotten in, or rather where momma got in, and had her baby. finally we found a vent where the screan had been pulled away, it was behind a lilac bush which is why we couldnt see it...
now, what on earth do I do to get the darned critter out? I have an inspector coming next week.... and you know he's going to want to go down there.......
I called animal control and the guy on call also workes for a critter removal service, for 150 bucks they come out and set a trap....
any one have any suggestions or ideas?????
I am really quite upset (as was the baby...all that chirping was really his little bark or whatever sound they make!)
please help!!!

does your animal control 'borrow out' traps? ours does. I'd go buy my own trap for that money! or put a dog or cat under there, they will ferret it out.

I dont think so Tig, I just dont know what to do!
I am so upset!!! a friend said to just leave it, but knowing it is down there, I couldnt let the inspector go down...

send the kids down there with big sticks and loud music!! LOL!! (not really kidding:)
what will the inspector do about a racoon? can't be that bad, can it?

well, it seems that the neighbour kids saw two babies walking along...and we think that this was the thrid one, and he got left behind, from the time that we first discovered it till now, when we went back to look, we think that the third one may have gotten out, cause we have tried to make enough noise to wake the dead and no noise (the funny chirping) is coming from down there. We put a board over the vent, and hopefully it will still be there tomorrow, if not, then either the momma and poppa tried to get back in or the baby tried to get back in or something, like that. all I know is that its past my bedtime, and I still have to get up tomorrow and go to work. if they have been living under there for months and they werent able to come in to the house and harm us., chances are they wont tonite. nothing else for me to do but go to bed!

right! sleep tight and I bet he's gone.

tiG, you are up so late...yes, I am going to go to bed now...

me too! gone:)

pebble: hope the little racoon is gone by now. Reminds me of my experience years ago. We lived in a house with a crawl space underneath ( as most houses in Texas have). We kept hearing a noise in the bathroom wall. We thought that it must be a mouse or something like that. One night, the noise and scratching got so bad that my wife decided to knock on the wall and scare the critter away. WRONG! It turned out to be a skunk who wasn't happy about being frightened so he did what skunks do when they are unhappy. We ended up having to move out while an exterminator gassed the poor thing out and de-odorized the house.
Bill

oh - what an awful thing that must have been Bill.
I think our little guy is gone. I am too scared to go down to the crawlspace to check....but I havent heard any noise at all.

A few years back, a mama raccoon lived under my deck for three summers she always had 2 or 3 little babies. She was such a ptient and gentle mommy, and so sweet, I fed them raw eggs, they loved them. one night I woke up to the sound of my metal garbage can being dragged across the driveway, when I looked out, I saw that they had pulled the hose under the deck, I guess they were really evolved raccoons, they decided their home needed running water!