1 Weekend, 2 Heart Attacks

This was not a good weekend for my heart. It started Saturday morning when I woke at up a little after 7:00 a.m. and thought it was Sunday and that I had forgotten to change my clock and that was about to be late for church. I kept running around looking at every clock in my room, tried to figure out why the reminder on my cell phone didn’t go off, and kept trying to figure out if I was correct that if it was now actually 8:00 instead of 7:00. This went on for a couple of minutes until I started wondering “what happened to Saturday?” I hate it when that happens. =o(

The second heart attack took place this morning. About 6:30 I heard a crash and thought something fell off the wall in the bathroom. I got up to investigate and everything looked fine. So I went into the other bathroom down the hall…everything fine there. My next thought was that the mirror finally fell of the wall downstairs. I was about to go downstairs when I heard a noise in the empty bedroom. It was obvious there was a raccoon in the attic, but I thought certainly the trap didn’t make that much noise. Then I hear the raccoon overhead and realized it wasn’t in the trap. I then take a step further into the bedroom and low and behold laying on the floor in the closet was the entrance to the attic. This really freaks me out. I take a quick glance around the room to make sure I’m alone, and then I quickly closed the door to the closet and proceeded downstairs to find a chair to prop in front of the door to make sure that anything that comes out of that attic doesn’t make its way through my house. This afternoon Jay from work went with me to investigate the situation and more importantly fix the current pressing situation. And would you believe after all of that, no raccoon in the trap!!! But I have learned one lesson…the door to the closet will stay closed until this situation is resolved. I am not pressing my luck!

They’re Baaack!

Oh yes blogger world, you guessed it…my non-rent paying residents decided to move back in over the weekend (see posts about this time two years ago).

Saturday morning, a little after 2 a.m., I wake up out of a deep sleep to hear that familiar sound of something walking around overhead and making it’s nest in the corner of my bedroom. Unlike the first time, I wasn’t freaked out…I was MAD! So I did the only thing I could think of…I stood on my bed and proceeded to pound on the ceiling until it moved. Then I laid there the rest of the night have irritated that they were back and half freaked out because the ceiling below the section of attic they seem to be attracted to is starting to sound weak and I don’t want a raccoon falling through the ceiling and landing in my bedroom. As I described it to my brother, it would be like that car commercial where the guy is locked in the car with the badger. Not good.

Saturday morning, I got up and went outside to see where it was getting in at, and sure enough, it was the same spot it got in the last time (which is not on my property, but the unit next to mine). Either the previous owner didn’t do a very good job of fixing it or those raccoons are persistent little boogers (I think it’s the latter). To make things more interesting, my new neighbors are Asian and the husband is freaked out by animals of any kind. When they moved in and I told them about my original experience with the raccoons, he looked panicked. Since I want this fixed permanently and quickly this time, I went next door and explained the situation and told him I would fix it if it was okay with them. I figured it will be a whole lot cheaper for me to fix it than to keep calling a pest control company out to remove raccoons.

Thankfully I haven’t heard the raccoons since Saturday. It doesn’t mean they’ve left all together, just means they haven’t been hanging out where I can hear them. The next step is to set a trap to be sure I caught the raccoon (I actually think there is only one up there so far…but I don’t want friends moving in). Since I don’t have anything to do with my attic – which includes sticking any part of my being through the opening – I’m hoping I can bribe a friend of mine with cookies and that he’ll come do it for me.

Once said raccoon has been relocated, I’ll be able to fix the opening under the eve. The next task will be to figure out a way to keep them from coming back. I am told that if I spray coyote urine (yes, that’s correct) in my attic, they’ll stay away. One, I’m not exactly sure where you buy such a product and two, I’ll owe my brother big time IF I’m able to talk him into going back up there (you know, after his whole finding a snake in my attic ordeal).

I guess the raccoons have been reading my posts lately and noticed how lame they had become and decided I needed a little excitement in my life. Thanks, but no thanks!

Lizard - Day 2

Well, I never caught the lizard yesterday, so it is still somewhere loose in my house (hopefully not my bedroom...but chances are good it's still in there). There are definitely too many places for my newest, non-rent paying, resident to hide.

Last night I decided to bite the bullet and actually sleep in my bedroom. It took me for ever to get the courage to actually get in bed (after much investigation of my bed area). Needless to say, I didn't sleep much last night. I kept waking up thinking something was crawling on me. At around 2 a.m. when I awoke for about the 3rd or 4th time, there was a HUGE spider in the middle of my bedroom floor. I debated whether or not to sit and wait and see if the lizard would be baited by the spider, but then decided that could take hours and I didn't want that spider loose in my room too.

I have come up with a potential game plan to catch it, I just have to find something to bait it with that won't run loose in my home as well. I'll keep you posted.

Stow-Away

I ran home at lunch, went up to my bedroom and low and behold, there is a LIZARD in my bedroom! I will not be sleeping in that room until I catch it...then again it could move throughout the house. Anyone know how to catch a lizard? I don't want to kill it, but if I'm going to wake up to something on the pillow beside me in the morning, it WILL NOT be a lizard! I'll keep you posted.

Update: I was advised by our resident nature man to Google it. This wasn't much help...it was already my game plan!

Monday Thoughts

Bad Season for Squirrels
I’ve decided it is not a good time to be a squirrel. I don’t know the cause, but I have noticed a lot of squirrels have met an untimely death lately when I have been out driving around. I have seen a ton of dead squirrels either on the side of the road or in the middle of the road. Most of them flat on their back. Are they falling out of trees? Have they been poisoned? Is the thought of being evacuated from their homes to make room for yet another shopping complex near Hafer Park just too much for them and are they lying there hoping to just end it all? I don’t know the answer, but if there are any squirrels reading this, you might steer clear of the asphalt.

Hmm…
I think if they ever make a TV movie about the Mark Foley case, I think they need to cast Matthew Perry to play him. Seriously, look how much they resemble each other. Just age Matthew a little and you’ve got your man!

Change to the Priority List
There has been a change to the home improvement priority list. I have a decided that it has become of the utmost importance that I drywall my storage space under the closet. I finally got the courage to try to pull out the stuff stored in there to patch the hole when I noticed the beginnings of a nest in the corner. Oh, yes. It appears that mouse is trying to take up residence in the “holiday closet”. I have a policy about non-rent paying residents. They must be evicted. Of course, when I saw the nest, I put what stuff I had pulled out back in, closed the door and called my mom. She said she’d help me take care of it over Thanksgiving, but I didn’t want to wait that long. So, all goes well, she and my brother are coming down for the day sometime next week and helping me “de-mouse” the closet (I won’t be helping with that part), patch the hole and put up drywall. Actually, this probably needs to be done to help with heating costs this winter. Of course, the last time my brother came down to help me with a home improvement project, he found a snake and a squirrel and almost had a heart attack. Maybe I need to have a video camera on hand this time!

I Almost Feel Bad For Laughing

So, I mentioned in an earlier post that when my brother tried to help me rid my attic of raccoons and snakes, he had a little run in with a squirrel. Well, it seems he had another little mishap a few days ago.

I'm not sure what lead to the excursion up to the roof, but I guess my brother had reason to believe he had a squirrel issue of his own. Rumor has it he climbed up on the roof to resolve the issue. Once he was up there, he leaned over the edge to measure how big the hole was he needed to cover when (and I'm laughing just thinking about it) the squirrel came running out at him! As a result, he proceeded to fall off the roof of their two-story home. Luckily the only thing he did was dislocate his shoulder, but the fact that the squirrels seems to have it out for him makes me laugh!

Another Day in the Life Of

Well, we got rid of the raccoon yesterday. The pest control guy came out and removed him from the attic and took him elsewhere. Our upstairs now smells like raccoon again and we’re desperately trying to get rid of the scent.

I have learned some things about raccoons through out all of this (actually becoming quite the expert). For example, unlike most animals who mark their territory to repel other animals from entering their domain (i.e. dogs), raccoons mark their territory as in to say “hey guys, the party is here!” Seems raccoons are attracted to the scent of other raccoons. Lovely! I was advised to try purchasing some coyote urine and spraying it in my attic to attempt to repel them. Melissa’s comment was the best when she said “well, just add that to shopping list…eggs, milk, bread, coyote urine.”

I have also learned that raccoons are quite the acrobats, so to Mr. Roberts who asked, “well, how did they get up there” that’s your answers! And, it seems that raccoons have a serious sweet tooth. Marshmallows are their favorite, but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches work well too (no joke!)

Based off of a website some one sent to me, this information is the most disturbing to me: “In attics and wall voids, the build-up of raccoon feces and urine can constitute health hazards to the homeowner.” All I have to say is YUCK! I’m serious…these little boogers are quickly depleting my savings. So much for a fence and new floors any time soon!

On the plus side, when I went home at lunch, it looked like the hole in the attic vent has been fixed. I don’t know about the roof since that can’t be seen from the ground. I guess we’ll see how the next few weeks go. As for the snake, I’m having mixed feelings. I don’t like that he’s up there, BUT it does keep rodents out. I never go up there anyway. Then again, with my luck, he’d die up there…on my end no doubt!

I would like to say this chapter has been brought to a close, but I seriously doubt it. I attract bad luck if you haven’t noticed. Then again thing could be worse. I could have a bear in my back yard or a hippo in my bathtub…it could happen!

Updates

We trapped a raccoon on Sunday night. I'll take pictures when the pest control company comes out today. Melissa said if it's possible, it's bigger than the last one. I hated to tell her our raccoons at camp are twice the size of the last one - so yep, it's possible. May have caught the snake too. There was a lot of comotion on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Oh, and the landlord for the other units acted like this was the first time I had told him we had raccoons and then asked me how they were getting on the roof. I assume they're climbing. =o)

I don't think I ever posted anything about this, but I've been doing brackets with both the ministers that I work with and with some camp friends. I'm tied for first in the office and tied for 3rd with the camp buds (which is okay, because I still did better than JT). I doubt I'll hold my lead though because both of the teams I had going to the championship game are out. I just think it's funny that I'm doing as well as I am because I don't really like basketball. I don't follow it at all and have no clue what I'm doing. That's probably why I do so well. I'm not trying to predict the upsets.

Wild Kingdom

The following account is true. No names have been changed to protect the innocent. No details have been exaggerated for dramatic effect.

If you have kept up with my blog at all, you know that a few months ago I bought a townhouse that has been an interesting experience to say the least. I really do like my place. It’s a work in progress, but I like the layout and I like the location. I even like the fact that it backs up to a greenbelt. I love the trees and I love being able to look out my back window and not see a busy street. Having this greenbelt has though been the source of some of the excitement around my house.

It all started with the raccoon (a.k.a. the non-rent paying resident). To recap, I trapped on in January, and then a few weeks ago, heard another one, so I set another trap. I have yet to catch the second one, but I also hadn’t heard him lately. I wasn’t sure how they were getting in and I’m too afraid to enter my attic (for good reason as you will soon learn), so my sweet, kind, loving, younger brother came down with my mom on Friday to investigate and resolve the situation.

I had to work for a little while on Friday morning, so when my mom and brother got here, I gave them a key to my house and planned to meet them there later. There was a lot of chaos in our office Friday morning, and at one point, I was on the phone, my cell phone was ringing, my direct line was ringing and someone was trying to transfer a call to me. Before I could check messages on both phones, my direct line rings again…it was my brother. Here is our conversation:

Brad: Hey, it’s your brother. I need to ask you a quick question.
Me: Can I call you right back. I’m in the middle of something.
Brad: Well, just really quick. I need to know who you want me to call – Edmond or Oklahoma City Animal Control, or do you want to call someone else?
Me: Why? What did you find?
Brad: You have a creature in our attic.
Me: A creature? What kind of a creature?
Brad: A snake. A very large snake. About 10 feet I think.

The rest of the conversation pretty much consisted of me saying “uh-uh” and “no way!”

It seems that when my brother went up into my attic to investigate, he looked over at my heater vent and there was a very large snake wrapped around it. Probably a bull snake. Brad then decided to see if it’s still alive and tosses something at it. That’s when it raised it’s head up…yep, he was alive. Story has it Brad quickly exited the attic. My brother and I may not have a lot in common, but we both HATE snakes. But he’s braver than me. After calling me, he went back up there to figure out where it got in at. He discovered a large hole in my attic right above my furnace closet (also right where the snake was originally). He was trying to figure out where this hole lead, so my mom was opening doors till they found it. When she closed the door to the furnace, the grate below rattled and squirrel that was hiding in a yet to be found hole, came running out at my brother. I’m so sad I wasn’t there with a video camera, but I guess he was out of the attic, down the stairs and out the front door in nothing flat.

Meanwhile, I called a pest control company to come out and resolve the issue. They didn’t find the snake, or the squirrel, but find out where they are getting in at. Seems the unit two doors down from me has a significant hole in the roof and the wire mesh is loose on one of the roof vents. I called their landlord and he told me he would stop by on Friday – which he never did. I really hope he gets it fixed soon, because until he does, I’m going to keep having to pay someone to come out and put down traps and at $50 a trip, that’s going to get expensive. Right now, I’m trying to take up a collection so I can pay them to come remove the snake when we catch it. My skin crawls just thinking about it. We need to peek up there to see if we’ve caught anything yet, but Melissa and I are both too freaked out knowing a snake is up there and not knowing where that snake might be when we open the hatch.

If you haven’t noticed, the squirrel and the raccoon are the least of my concerns now.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, I’m having another wild life issue. I also have a bird outside my window that likes to start singing around 5:30 or 6:00 every morning. I like birds, but couldn’t he at least wait till 6:30 when I need to get up? If you’ve seen the movie Failure to Launch, you know which character I can relate to right now.

So, if anyone if feeling adventurous, come on over! I’m sure this will not be my last post on wild life. My book definitely has a new chapter. I just need to get writing.

It’s Baaaccckkk!

Oh yes, my non-rent paying resident moved back in on Saturday. Is it the exact same one? Don’t know – kind of doubt it, but it does like the same part of the attic…right above my bed. I already wasn’t sleeping well on Friday night/Saturday, but at 5:10 a.m. when I am awoken by something walking overhead and the sound of plaster cracking, and going back to sleep was not an option.

At first I was mad that I was awake, then I was mad that it had come back, then I was freaked out that it might fall through the ceiling and I would not only have a big hole in my ceiling that I would have to have repaired, but that I would also have a raccoon loose in my room and well…you can picture the drama that would be taking place. At about 6:00 a.m., I finally yelled out “GET OUT OF MY ATTIC!” Not that it did any good, but I at least was able to vent my frustration without the fear of waking my roommate (she was out of town).

So yesterday we (i.e. Melissa) ventured back into her closet and opened the crawl space and once again set the trap for our “friend”. I didn’t hear him (I hope it’s a him, I don’t want babies up there), but I also didn’t hear anything in the trap when I left for work, so I think it decided to stay outside last night instead of coming in. GOOD!

Honestly, it’s my own fault. I should have figured out where it is coming in by now, but I’m just so freaked out by my attic, that I have not been able to bring myself to go get a ladder and climb up there and check it out. And now knowing that it is probably sleeping up there during the day really doesn’t encourage me to want to check it out. I guarantee you that if I came face to face with ANYTHING up there, it would not be pretty. I’d probably fall through the ceiling trying to get out of there. I did look out Melissa’s window to see if it was getting in the vent there, but even though it looks like something had bent the mesh, it doesn’t look loose – which probably means that it is getting in at my neighbor’s and I didn’t think it would go over all that well if he looked out the window and saw me standing there. Can you see the headlines now “Church Secretary Arrested on Peeping Tom Charge!”

So, if anyone out there wants to venture up into my attic and find the point of entry and fix it for me, there would at the very least be cookies in it for you, and maybe even dinner if that’s what it takes!!!!

Oh No!!!

I was driving up Bryant earlier today (which is the street I live off of) and what did I see on the side of the road? A dead raccoon!! I don't know if it was my raccoon trying to make it's way back to my attic (which I still don't know how it got in because I'm too scared climb up there), or one of his relatives.

BUT I want the record to show that he was already dead when I drove by. I will not be held responsible for it's untimely demise. I'm not a raccoon hater or killer, I just didn't want it living in my attic!

Final Eviction – I Hope

Well, on Friday I finally gave in and got a trap from Jay (our maintenance supervisor) in hopes to catch our non-rent paying resident. The big question from everyone at work was what we were going to do when we caught it. We resolved this by offering to make Randy dinner if he would come get it (I think by Saturday night, I had guilted him enough he finally gave in).

By time I got home on Friday, it was dark, so decided to wait to Saturday to catch us a squirrel. Now this was a chore in itself. First, we had to figure out how to set the trap (which we finally did), then we had to put it up in the attic. When I say “we” I mean Melissa. I was not going up there for anything as long as there was something living up there. Putting it up there was not as easy as we thought it would be. Turns out our step ladders were not tall enough for anyone to actually climb up there and the crawl space was too small to actually lift the trap directly up into the attic, so Melissa had to turn it on end, feel around to find a good spot to put the trap and then set it up there. THEN we had to get the bait in there. Since the bait had to be put in the back of the trap, this was really tricky. We didn’t want to set the trap off in the process, but since our ladder wasn’t tall enough, there was no way for her to reach all the way to the back of the trap. She ended up having to stick her fingers through the holes in the trap and working the bowl of bait towards the back (very impressive I must say). Once everything was in place, we closed up the hole and waited.

I got home before Melissa on Saturday night, and I didn’t hear anything when I got home, but by time she got home, she could definitely tell we had caught our non-rent paying resident. I didn’t know this till after church Sunday morning. I guess it had kept her up all night trying to get out of the cage. When I got home, she opened the crawl space back up and tried to see if she could see anything. Her first comment was “I see fur.” Then she looked again and said something I didn’t expect – “it’s NOT a squirrel.” She saw ears and at first thought it might be a cat and then looked a third time and concluded it was a raccoon! She even stuck her digital camera up there to confirm it.

So, here was our dilemma. Though Randy offered to take the squirrel out of our attic, wasn’t sure that offer would apply to a raccoon AND he was in Enid and I didn’t want to leave that thing up there any longer than necessary. So I called Jay since he’s all about anything that has to do with wildlife. As you can see, we weren’t exaggerating. We really did have a raccoon in our attic. It was really pretty tame for a wild raccoon. Jay said he kept trying to play with his shoe laces when he took him out to Lake Arcadia to let him go. Tame or not, I did not want him (or her) living in my attic.

So far, I think we’re resident free, but not 100% sure yet. We need to get a taller ladder so we can peek up there and see if we can tell where it was getting in at. THEN I’m hoping my brother will come visit me and patch up the entry spot it it’s on my end of the unit (if it’s not, the land lord for the other three units will be getting a phone call.)

Oh, and I must apologize to the squirrel that I blamed for living in my attic. I'm sorry Mr. Squirrel, but let this be a lesson to you -- you move into my attic, you will get re-located.

The Squirrel Has GOT to Go!

I’m sorry, but it’s either that furry woodland creature or me! This waking me up at 4 a.m. thing has got to stop. And this morning was the final straw. I swear he’s (or she most likely) trying to make a nest ABOVE MY BED! I laid there for a good half hour or more just hoping it didn’t fall through the ceiling. I could hear the plaster making these cracking noises and all I could picture was the panic and chaos that would take place if that thing came through my ceiling and landed in my room – or worse, on my BED! I mean, picture it… that thing running in circles, trying to get away and me SCREAMING and trying to get the thing out.

I’m sure you’re reading this and laughing, but seriously, this is a quandary for me. If it was just a matter of putting a trap in the attic – I could handle that. But as Suzy pointed out, it won’t do any good unless I know how it’s getting in and fix the situation. As I have mentioned before, I’m scared of the attic. The thought of doing anything more than poking my head through the opening in Melissa’s closet (which I would have to psych myself up for), freaks me out. I’m pretty self-sufficient and getting good and fixing things myself, but I don’t do attics. It’s times like this that I miss my dad the most. He would be down here in a second and would repair the situation for me. I could ask my brother, but it would be a few weeks before he could make it down and I’m afraid of what kind of damage that “thing” might do between now and then. I seriously need a knight in shinning armor!

Regardless of when and how the removal of the squirrel takes place, I’m getting it on tape because I have a feeling it won’t be without incident!

Joining the Crowd

It started with Lindsy, then Suzy followed suit, and NOW I too get to join the ranks of those with a squirrel living in my attic. Or, that’s what I hope it is. My first experience (though I didn’t realize it at the time) was right after I moved in and I something woke me up at 5 a.m. I figured it was just the house creaking because nothing else I could think of that could be up there would be making that much noise. But come to find out, though small, squirrel’s can sound quite heavy when walking on the beams above.

Since the first incident, I hadn’t really heard anything till Tuesday night. At 12:43 a.m. something wakes me from my sleep and I sit right up in bed. I had been dreaming that something was coming through my ceiling. I knew I heard something, but after a few minutes, thought maybe Melissa had just gotten up for some reason. It took me a little bit to get my heart to stop racing so I was just laying there waiting to go back to sleep when I heard it again…something climbing up my wall and moving above me. I could even tell when it moved from the rafters to the insulation. No doubt there was something up there, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, so I went back to sleep.

The next day, I pondered what to do about my unwanted, non-rent paying resident. I wasn’t going up in the attic, that’s for sure. I’m scared of the attic. And really not just may attic – any attic. The only way I will even consider entering an attic is if it has the pull down stairs. I’m not sure why that makes a difference. Maybe I feel that if it’s just a crawl space in the ceiling, than it really wasn’t meant to be entered (and for those who have seen The Grudge, no jokes about creepy Japanese kids who live in the attic).

I finally decided to plug in this thing I had in my old garage that puts out ultra sonic noises to keep the mice away in hopes that maybe it would work on the squirrel. So far I haven’t heard anything the last two nights, but I’m not getting my hopes up at this point. I think as long as he doesn’t do anything destructive in my attic, I might just let him be!