Friday, April 17, 2009

SUCCESS!!! THE VARMIT IS OUSTED!!!

Perhaps you've heard that I have been at WAR with a certain mildly-cute, over-sized RAT, a/k/a a squirrel! If you haven't then you are likely not on facebook where I have been ranting for weeks on end about this mysterious heckler.

So about three months ago we started hearing suspicious noises in the attic. I was unsure what it was; and most of all I didn't know HOW it got up there. I finally decided it must be a small mouse that is somehow crawling up one of the vent holes in our foundation. I put out D-Con hoping that would be the end of our problem.

For about two weeks we heard nothing. Then, out of nowhere, the noises got far more random, frequent and aggressive. Last week I was sitting in my office and I heard something digging at the drywall right above my head. I ran to the attic at once; and there was this little squirrel looking at me like I was disturbing him. Not running away mind you -- just glaring. His exact expression looked something like this:
I called an animal control company at once, and they came out within a couple of hours. They set a trap and walked around the perimeter of the house. Right away they figured out how it got in. (How I missed this gaping hole on my roof is beyond me!) They told me to check the trap everyday and call them when it was caught.

I checked the trap dutifully every day, but to no avail. We never caught anything. Yesterday they came back out to plug the holes where the dormers intersect our roof. They told me that they were 90% sure the squirrel was outside foraging for food, so it probably wasn't trapped inside. But just in case, they left a trap.

We went all night without hearing the critter, and I was reasonably confident the varmit was no more. Then today I was delighted when we pulled in the driveway to see the evicted transient eyeballing us from our roof!

Oh the smell of victory! I wasn't even disappointed when it started raining during this photo op. Have a great weekend. I know we will!!!

1 comment:

Valerie said...

Crackin'. Me. Up. Although I might not share this story with my husband, otherwise known as "St. Francis of Assisi" (patron saint of the animals), who makes it his mission in life to feed the squirrels at Woodward Park as often as possible. I do suspect he would be happy to hear the little guy escaped unharmed -- a win-win situation indeed. :)