The Bonner home, which was recently willed to a sizable pack of raccoons. DEMOPOLIS, AL—In a move that surprised and disappointed her descendants, widow Evelyn Bonner willed her property, a nineteenth-century mansion with nine adjacent, overgrown acres, to a family of raccoons who resided in the upper floors of the house. Bonner passed away two weeks ago at the age of 104. In her video will, she explains, "The raccoons should get the house. They moved into the attic 30 years ago. Twenty-five years ago, they moved down into the upstairs, and it's been 24 years since I have been up there to check on them. They seemed considerate. I only hear them scratching around in the early evening and around dawn. They only raided my kitchen garbage twice a week and usually defecated in the corners. Plus, they certainly stuck around, unlike all my children and grandchildren, who moved to Birmingham first chance they got."
Lawyer Dickie Bay, who served as executor, also noted that Mrs. Bonner had expressed some concern that her son would clear the lot behind the house and fill it with cheap rental trailers or that her daughter-in-law would open an ill-conceived "back-to-nature" bed and breakfast attempting to attract urbanites by promising nightly viewing of raccoon antics. Says Bay, "She wanted the house to remain a stately manor inhabited by someone with generations of breeding, and those raccoons certainly had been breeding in her attic for many generations." The only question now is whether the raccoons will plan on evicting the thousands of bats who call the attic home now that they have officially taken control of the property. The new principal owner of the house, the alpha raccoon known to Mrs. Bonner as Mr. Bandit, was not available for comment.
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