@gregeganSF Would it be better if you found a neatly written order form for more apples?

@gregeganSF Then you keep leaving apples and small gifts and offerings.

@gregeganSF Well… it seems to have the rats and possums under control so probably not worth worrying about.

@gregeganSF That'd be proof you have a horror writer in your roof.

@gregeganSF @cstross I’m skeptical of that advice anyway.

I had a pet rat in high school, and I distinctly remember her stealing an apple from a backpack and dragging it to a far corner of my room. It was easily multiple times her weight.

@gregeganSF Exterminator here. I don't know for sure about your possums, but our North American opossums don't typically invade roofs. It can happen, but it isn't common. Maybe your marsupials have a wider variety of behaviors, so my advice may be pointless. Either way, I suggest calling a pro.

@gregeganSF what if you find the apple replaced by the severed head of a doll?

@gregeganSF Gremlins! For those you need to leave out a bowl 'a milk every day and hope it doesn't come for you.

@gregeganSF
If the apple is taken, it could be raccoons....

@gregeganSF We thought our bedroom wall was full of rats but it turned out to be microbats. We don't mind the shuffling & squeaking now we know what it is. This is Tasmania, though.

In WA our mystery roof monsters were a beetle trying to get through a smoke detector and a monitor lizard that lived above the bedroom.

@gregeganSF if the apple is gone, and a little pile of poop is there instead, then it is raccoon- complete wit raccoon version of humor.

@gregeganSF when you return, an apple tree has grown in the spot where you left the apple, with roots impossibly absorbed by the floor and vine like branches that coil around the rafters. The fruits of the tree are strange. One apple has a patterned skin that matches the wallpaper from the house. Another is shaped like the art deco round door handle from the closet. Some of the apples glow like light bulbs, while others look like partially formed furniture.

@gregeganSF do corvids live in roofs?

@gregeganSF Not sure where you are located but there are too many animals around my area to know for certain in this case lol 😆

In other words... they all did it 😎

@gregeganSF That's a pumpkin. Apples turn into shrunken heads. (and you don't want to know what does that)

@gregeganSF Day 35: we had reached 13 apples in the Fibonacci sequence, and when I went up there today I found no apples, instead a nice bottle of Scotch with a note on it saying "THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH".

@gregeganSF that's not a jack-o'-lantern, it's an effigy.. :blobcatscream:

@gregeganSF or you find a large python wrapped around a rat/possum/apple shaped lump that it is quietly digesting 😁

@gregeganSF There's your problem, ya got some babadooks. Gonna be a bear gettin em out I tell ya

@gregeganSF

The possums here steal the thick lemon peel, leaving bare naked lemons hanging on our tree.

The possums here are obviously making limoncello.

@gregeganSF I found a hand carved apple head doll. I think I have hipsters.

@gregeganSF or just the core, neatly sliced by what must have been a rather sharp and efficient knife...

@gregeganSF Leave straw there. Maybe it is spun to gold.

@gregeganSF that means either raccoon or a murderous clown.

@gregeganSF @neilhimself wait which kind of possum? US opossums or Australian possums?

@gregeganSF or a pallid bust of Pallas

@gregeganSF Beavers are also very keen on apples. Though not, I suppose, especially prone to climbing into roof spaces...