A mother Charlotte Glazier was left feeling ‘totally perplexed’ after she saw a hole chewed through her back door and noticed her kitchen cupboard had been raided.
At first, the woman, from Ryde, Isle of Wight, thought she had been a victim of ‘mindless vandalism’ but soon realised there was ‘nothing human’ about the state her house had been left in.
After some time, the mother realised the ‘carnage’ had in fact been caused by a badger – who was trying ‘everything possible to get home’.
Describing the incident, the mother said: ‘It was like something out of a Goldilocks fairytale where you arrive home and say ‘Has someone been trying to eat my porridge?’.
‘It was that sort of moment but I just couldn’t figure out what it was. The whole place was trashed.’
Ms Glazier had returned home with a friend and her daughter at around 6pm on Valentine’s day to find a pane of glass had been broken. In addition, her daughter’s door had ‘big bear marks’ on it.
The mother said her own bedroom looked like ‘absolute carnage’ and the pipe of her washing machine had also been bit through.
At first, the mother wondered whether the damage was ‘mindless vandalism by young people breaking in’ but she swiftly realised it must have been an animal.
The woman – in her 40s – added: ‘I quickly realised there was nothing human about this – I just didn’t know what kind of animal.
‘I couldn’t figure out what animal it was. I was totally perplexed.’
Eventually, Ms Glazier found a badger hiding under her bed and said it was just doing ‘everything possible to get home’.
After spending 45 minutes on the phone to police and the RSPCA, she eventually came across Badger Trust Isle of Wight.
Graham Lee, from the voluntary organisation, attended and when he entered the bedroom – he saw the badger sleeping in an upturned bin.
He said: ‘I watched it walk around the room to make sure it wasn’t injured and then caught it and put it into our badger cage and gave it a check over.’
Mr Lee asked a neighbour to help carry the cage down the stairs and onto the pavement
He added: ‘She trotted off up the pavement without a care in the world towards a sett I know of.’
Mr Glazier said Mr Lee was a ‘godsend’ and said she didn’t expect to return home on Valentine’s Day to a badger.
The mother said: ‘We returned and we were not expecting that, we had another plan that night and it wasn’t trying to evict a badger in the best possible way. Having a badger in my bedroom on Valentine’s Day is certainly a first.’