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!

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.

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!