A woman was on her lunch break when an unexpected guest came crashing through the ceiling of her apartment. It had been an ordinary day for Tiahna, a 23-year-old who lives and works from home in Brisbane, Australia, when she began hearing noises. Tiahna declined to share her full name for this story.
"That day I was working from home, clocked off for my break, then heard noises," she told Newsweek. As the sounds grew louder, she instinctively grabbed her phone and hit record. Seconds later, possums came crashing through the ceiling and landed at her feet.
It was a shock, to say the least, but possums are becoming an increasingly common presence in Australia's urban areas as the number of natural tree hollows they would typically inhabit continues to decline. Earlier this year, a study published in the journal People and Nature examined 2,400 wildlife rescue reports involving animals found in and around buildings across Australia over the past decade. The findings showed that brushtail and ringtail possums accounted for about half of all cases.
Possums were by far the most common native animals occupying human-made structures, with most discovered in roof cavities, wall spaces and garages, as well as beneath houses. Tiahna said she and her roommates have "been dealing with possums for about two years now," with "constant noise in the ceiling at all hours of the night." Though, it has never been anything quite like this. "We've brought it up to the real estate agency, and nothing's really happened," she said.
"They sent someone out to remove the possums, but it didn't work." Given the ongoing issues, Tiahna jumped at the chance to capture footage of whatever was causing the commotion in her roof that day. She just never expected to record footage of the possums crashing into her kitchen. "I whipped out my phone when I heard the noises because I thought no one was going to believe me if they fell through," she said.
"And they did." Tiahna said that section of the roof had previously been damaged during a cyclone, creating an opportunity for local possums to move in. She suspects two possums in the roof space had been fighting and that the altercation ultimately spilled into her home. For now, the hole has been covered with a board bolted over the damaged area.
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