If your children told you there was a creature in their room, you’d probably think they were either trying to wind you up or talking about an imaginary friend.
At the very most, you’d carry out a quick search of their room before declaring there was nothing to worry about and calling it a day.
If you did though, you might come to regret it – as one mum in Ohio found out last summer when she ignored her daughters’ claims there was something ‘not human’ in their room.
Caitlin Burch, a mother of two daughters, aged seven and 10, went viral earlier this week when she told a hilarious story on social media about a ‘creature’ that was in her house for three days.
Speaking to Buzzfeed News, Caitlin explained how her daughters had come to her and her husband, Bryan, claiming ‘there was something in their room.’
Caitlin said:
They used the words ‘creature’ and ‘rat’. The 7-year-old insisted that there was something… The 7-year-old would not sleep in her room. They sleep in their room every night, but I told her she could sleep in the guest room that night if it made her feel better.
The couple searched their room but didn’t find anything, and told their daughters not to worry as it was probably nothing. But oh how wrong they were…
A few days later, Caitlin came to realise that the ‘creature’ was, in fact, a possum:
Yikes. The possum had somehow been living in the girls’ room for three days – it’s no wonder the youngest was too scared to sleep in there!
After Chrissy Teigen tweeted about her daughter’s hamster vanishing, Caitlin made sure to reply with her very own story about how the possum managed to go undetected for three whole days.
Obviously, the two girls were delighted when they realised they were right, with Caitlin saying:
It’s very much an ‘I told you so’ moment for them. We realised after the fact that we should have noticed some things.
Some toys knocked over. Dog’s food missing, so we know it had been in the rest of the house too. The dog never made a peep the whole time it was in the house.
It took Bryan about two hours to remove the possum and send it back out into the wilderness, which honestly is enough to give me nightmares for about a week.
Thankfully the girls found the entire thing ‘hilarious,’ and Caitlin’s just grateful they’re willing to sleep in the house still.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).