Isophoric News · Tuesday, November 3, 2026
The Tenant
She is back on my roof.
I want to be clear about what I mean. I do not mean a raccoon. I do not mean a branch. I mean something that weighs, by my estimate based on the deflection of the ridge beam, between four hundred and five hundred pounds, that arrives between 1:30 and 2:00 AM, crosses from the southeast corner to the center of the roof in four steps, and lies down. I can hear her settle. The whole house shifts.
This has been going on for three weeks. I have gone out there with a flashlight every single time. She moves to the opposite side the moment I open the door. By the time I get around the house she has moved again. I have never seen her. But I have found the hair on the gutters, black and coarse, between four and six inches long. I have found the shingle damage, a rectangular compression pattern roughly six feet by three feet centered over my bedroom. And I have found the smell, which I will describe as cedar bark and wet stone, the same smell I reported after the incident at the restaurant.
I know who this is. Gerald set us up. I went on one date. I did not call back, because my date was an eight foot tall primate who ordered banned caviar and I felt that the evening had raised more questions than it answered. That was apparently not how she took it.
I have called animal control. They asked what kind of animal. I said I did not know. They said to call back when I did. I have called my homeowner's insurance. They do not cover damage caused by wildlife unless the wildlife is specifically named in the policy. Bigfoot is not named in my policy. I have called Gerald. Gerald has not returned my calls since the dinner and I am starting to think Gerald knows more about this situation than he has been willing to say.
She is not aggressive. I want to make that clear because I do not want anyone reading this to think I am describing a threat. She is not breaking in. She is not damaging anything except the shingles, which I will need to replace in the spring. She just sleeps there. Every night. From roughly 2 AM to just before dawn, when she leaves the same way she came, from the southeast corner, and disappears into the tree line behind my property.
I do not know what to do about this. I cannot get a restraining order against someone whose legal name I do not know. I cannot file a noise complaint because technically she is quieter than my neighbor's heat pump. And I cannot pretend it is not happening because I can feel the house settle every night at two in the morning and I have not slept through a full night since October.
If anyone in the readership has dealt with a similar situation, I would appreciate practical advice. I am not looking for theories. I have enough of those.
T.F. Shaw