Fermanagh man felt ‘threatened’ after pine marten broke into his house

Richard Pierce, a retired architect who lives in the Derrygonnelly area, spoke to The Impartial Reporter about his shocking discovery that a pine marten had broken into his home through a wooden window frame which had began to rot.

Richard Pierce.

Early last week, Richard had cooked himself a fish pie. At the time, he ate half of it and left the rest in the casserole dish to enjoy the next day after he had returned from his daily one mile swim.

"When I came back in from my swim, I noticed that the lid was off [the casserole dish] and I thought, 'that's strange', and I didn't think there was as much fish pie as I had left, but I ate it in my ignorance.

"I didn't know [at that stage] that I had shared it with a pine marten," said Richard.

It was only when he got up to go into his living room that he realised what had happened.

"I just saw a huge mess on the floor where the pine marten had come in through. It had pushed all sorts of rotted wood on the corner of the window ahead of it.

The damage caused by the pine marten in Richard Pierce's house.

"It had just made a mess and then I looked around to see if there was any other mess and I saw the excrement of the pine marten in the utility room and on the worktops - that really really upset me.

"First of all as I realised at that point that I had eaten the fish pie and shared it with the pine marten. That really revolted me," he said, adding: "I just got very upset and I didn't know what to do."

Richard began to ring around his friends, to ask for advice on what he should do. A friend's son left him a trap for the pine marten and they used apricot jam as bait. Speaking to this newspaper, Richard acknowledged that pine martens are a protected species and the idea of using the trap was to capture it and return it to the wild.

"The trap is still here but the pine marten has never gone into the trap," said Richard, who the next morning contacted a contractor to see if he could fix the window, to prevent the pine marten from entering his house again.

"I got a contractor who put foam in it [the hole in the window frame] but then the pine marten made an even worse mess getting rid of that foam," he explained.

The next day he phoned Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, who put him in touch with Mary Polizzi who runs a wild animal sanctuary in Boho.

A pine marten photographed by Richard.

"I was afraid that if I got down on my hands and knees to clear up the mess that the pine marten had made, especially in the utility room, it might be hiding and since it's a cul-de-sac, [I was worried that] it would feel cornered and might have a go at [attack] my face. I was just so scared," said Richard, who, due to knee issues, has restricted mobility and was worried he wouldn't be able to get away from the pine marten if it attacked. He noted that Mary cleaned up the mess for him, for which he was very grateful.

"Firstly she ascertained that the pine marten was not in the house and then she cleaned up everything which was very kind of her," he added.

As the foam was unsuccessful, Richard contacted a man who specialises in pest eradication.

"He put wire netting on the hole and since then I have not seen or heard anything from the pine marten, but it was scary while it happened," said Richard, who at one stage, for fear of attack, had shut himself away in his bedroom: "At that point I didn't know if the pine marten was in the house so I closed the door to my bedroom in case it was wandering around the house. I felt threatened by it."

"I'm still nervous that [the pine marten] will come back," Richard told this newspaper, noting that the fixing of the window with the wire net is only temporary and he is still looking for help to find a more permanent fix.