6 Animals You're Not Safe From in Your Own House
Nature cannot be trusted. But if you think you're safe inside on the Internet, think again, because these animals will come for you in your own home.
Hawks
Rico the Chihuahua was out on the patio when a hawk swooped in and started violently pecking his tiny head, because literally the only purpose purse-sized dogs serve is to be food for sky-blazing ambush predators of terrifying majesty. Rico's 74-year-old owner, Margaret, managed to grab the defenseless dog away from the hawk's beating wings of fury and run inside. But the bird followed them into the house, chasing the dog through the front room and into the kitchen and pinning it down again.
We'd have just adopted the hawk and considered ourselves lucky for the upgrade.
Margaret wrestled Rico from the talons of destruction three more times before finally grabbing hold of the hawk and throwing it the hell out of her house.
Coyotes
A New Jersey man woke up one morning and noticed that his basement window was broken and glass was strewn all over the room, which is normally an indication that Donnie Wahlberg has broken in again. But this time there was a coyote lying peacefully on the floor, waiting for him like the president of the homeowner's association doing a surprise inspection.
"Your hedges aren't of uniform height. But I'll forget that if you order a pizza."
Trained animal control officers arrived soon after to remove the coyote using the highly specialized professional technique of rattling pans at her until she ran out through the garage.
Bears
A cable TV repairman working in a New Jersey basement heard a growl and turned to see a 500-pound black bear appraising his performance.
The bear had built a bed of leaves and branches and had probably been living down there for weeks -- apparently the homeowner heard all the mysterious growling and rustling and just thought his basement was haunted. Animal control officers chased the bear through the neighborhood for an hour before finally tranquilizing it and taking it back to the woods, instructing the homeowner to be more vigilant when reading roommate applications on Craigslist.
"He said his name was Barry Berenstain, I just never put two and two together."
Seals
A woman in New Zealand found a baby seal relaxing on her couch, which is unusual in a country whose primary form of marine life is Russell Crowe in Master and Commander.
Unlike Russell, his blubber is adorable.
When a Department of Conservation officer arrived to collect the animal, it turned out he'd already caught the same seal earlier in the day when it had crawled into someone's garden. And once the seal was in the officer's car, it escaped from a box, climbed into the front seat, and turned on the radio, perfectly setting the stage for a mid-'90s family comedy about a bumbling animal catcher and a seal on a cross-country road trip.
Foxes
An elderly woman in England woke up one morning to find a fox sitting on her chest and staring at her face like it was a geometry problem.
"Oh snap, I thought this was my bedroom."
She jumped out of bed screaming, and her husband sprang into action with a camera, snapping photographs of the fox instead of checking to see if it had eaten his wife's lips or anything (this is the 21st century equivalent of dialing 911). After sufficiently documenting the fox for future generations, he shooed it out of the house.
Penguins
The South African town of Stony Point is gradually being taken over by a breeding colony of jackass penguins, which are so named for their braying vocalizations, and not for any innate ability to draw paychecks from MTV.
They also have a tendency to leave meager tips and laugh at their own jokes.
They've invaded lawns, gardens, patios, and driveways, and they keep people awake all night with their bellowing calls. The birds are endangered, so they can't be evicted during breeding season, which is a fact they seem entirely aware of. A 79-year-old woman found one blasting shit all over her kitchen and could not get it to leave. And one man, after discovering more than 30 nests in the garden of his vacation home, was forced to give the place up because of the unbearable stench of buttery penguin deuce.
