A see-through lettuce bag full of fur – that's what Brit Heck, who lives on a farm with her boyfriend, was greeted with when she opened her trash can.

It sounds like the opening of a pretty grisly story, and it's exactly what Heck was fearing as she peaked inside the bag.

But then it moved, as her insanely viral TikTok shows.

It soon became clear that the fur ball inside the bag was still very much alive, and a closer inspection revealed it to be a close acquaintance: a possum Heck and her boyfriend call Richard Nibbler.

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"He was sort of indignant when I freed him," she told The Dodo. "Oh, he was grateful, but that was hidden under a veneer of sharp-toothed unhappy face and the [possum] equivalent of, 'Go away and let me enjoy this trash in peace!'"

Mr. Nibbler has been living in the farm's barn for three years, enough time to become something of a mascot.

According to Heck, he's not exactly the most friendly critter you've ever met – but he's extremly stubborn, as the next episode in this drama reveals!

The day after Heck's first rescue operation, she found her little mascot in the exact same place again.

This behavior is apparently "Classic Richard," who is extremely headstrong.

Heck thinks he was drawn to the trash because of the cat food cans they throw in there every morning.

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"That smell was enough to bring Richard waddling back in and heaving himself into the trash can once again to look for a special treat. I had to gently take his tail and lift him out, with Richard defiantly clinging to pieces of trash the entire time," she told The Dodo.

Even after all this trouble, it's hard not to love the scruffy dumpster diver.

"Opossums are absolutely harmless to you and do a lot of good in the world," Heck insisted.

"Evolution didn't give them a lot of defenses, and so we take extra good care of any of them that we come across here."