APACHE JUNCTION, AZ (CBS5) -
On Sunday, Max Merrick noticed something was awry at his Apache Junction home.
"I was bringing something in the shed the other day and I smelled something. What the heck? Really strong," he said.
So he peered into the black hole he calls his root cellar.
"I saw a darn javelina in there," he said.
Merrick called his friends, who came to meet their bristly new neighbors.
"Three guys are just all bent over looking down in that hole, trying to get a hold of that stupid pig," Merrick said.
That's when they realized a family of four was piled into the corner, squatting under his shed.
"They took everything off the shelves," he said.
So Merrick did what anyone would do.
"At first I tried talking him out," as he made short snorting noises. "It works good in Iowa."
Then the 74-year-old made a ramp.
"I had a big old piece of carpet I put on top of the ladder at an angle, so maybe they could walk on out," he explained.
When that didn't work, he called Arizona Game and Fish. Then, he called the cops.
"I called the sheriff's department. They said, 'You got what? Where?'"
Deputies came out and advised Merrick to call Liberty Wildlife, and a man named Carl came to the rescue.
"He says, 'I'm gonna change the world, with one animal at a time,' you know," Merrick said, chuckling.
Hours later, one animal at a time with a long pole and a loop, they were out. The daddy javelina was a little worse for wear.
"Old Carl jumped down there and gave him mouth to snout and the other guy's giving him CPR and then by gosh, he got up and took off," Merrick said with a laugh.
The whole family ran off into what Merrick calls his critter country.
"Nothing is threatened up here. I get a lot of critters coming through here," Merrick said.
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