This is not the kind of e-mail you want to get from your neighbor.
“As I was driving out this morning, I noticed there was a hole underneath your roof, and a squirrel was peeking out.”
Holy rodent infestation! I remained calm, but my husband, Paul, went into a tailspin.
He was probably remembering the Siege of the Red Squirrels.
Our 1870s-era home was originally built with an attached shed. This small, barn-like building had a loft. We’ve since torn it down and replaced it with a family room, but in its last year, it provided some convenient nooks and crannies for our resident (as in yard) squirrels.
Paul borrowed a Havahart trap. He set it in the loft. Paul soon had a captive. He drove six miles to a pond and set it free. Just to be sure, Paul baited and set the trap again.
A second red squirrel had to be relocated. Then a third. The final count: five.
Luckily, we have not had any red squirrels return to our yard. The ones we’ve seen all summer are gray, and very active. I would usually see two at a time, chasing each other up and down the pear tree and along the fence.
Paul got to work to try to find help. Our local animal control officer did not “do” squirrels. However, there are people out there who specialize in small animal removal from homes, and one happened to live right in our town.
We don’t have a true attic. It’s a crawl space, and it is filled with blown-in insulation. To reach it, one stands on a ladder in the upstairs hallway, opens the trap door, and sticks one’s head and shoulders into the square opening. The Squirrel Whisperer (as I came to call him), after completing this operation, did not find any evidence of squirrels. He didn’t set a trap. We were to call him if we had any further developments.
This left us in a bit of a predicament. We didn’t want to seal off the hole and trap squirrels inside. The thought of the animals slowly dying up there would disturb us, of course. But a more realistic scenario was that they would chew through the walls and end up in the house proper. Or gnaw electrical lines. Those sharp little teeth could wreak all sorts of havoc.
I took a look up there myself. It really didn’t look like the old loft did when the red squirrels had established their stronghold.True, there was a lot of insulation, but it wasn’t disturbed in any way. We weren’t hearing any scrabbling, aside from the one time Paul heard squirrels scampering while he was in the upstairs bathroom.
It was my feeling that the squirrels might not be in the crawl space at all. They might be in a narrow, confined space between the trim (where the hole was) and the interior wall.
After Paul and one of our cats heard squirrels again, we called back the Squirrel Whisperer. He set a trap. Something came to the trap, but managed to snatch the bait without being captured.
I kept insisting that the squirrels had not set up shop in the attic. Meanwhile, Paul was on the phone trying to round up someone to fix the hole. We decided that even if we closed up the space, we could catch any remaining rodents with the trap.
Then, a miracle. Our favorite builder, Jason, called. He had built the family room, as well as our new garage. Paul had asked him to replace some clapboards near the porch, but as it was such a small job, we knew we’d have to wait until he had time between bigger contracts.
That time had arrived.
Jason set to work replacing part of the trim that contained the squirrel hole. But when he was done, he didn’t like the way it looked, so he set about replacing the full trim along that side of the house. That’s where he discovered a lot of squirrel debris.
I refrained from saying, “I told you so.”
Jason then turned his attention to the front porch, where the rotted clapboards were. He discovered that the water damage extended well beyond the visible area. The porch (except for the columns and roof) would have to be rebuilt. It’s a small porch, so this was not as big a project as it may sound like.
Still, it was rather alarming to see our porch stripped of its sides.
The next day, Jason decided the columns had to be replaced as well.
It had been a whirlwind two weeks. We started with a squirrel sighting, and ended with a new porch.
After the hole was sealed, we heard no more scrabbling and there was no more movement around the trap. Paul removed it and called the Squirrel Whisperer so he could pick it up.
“It turns out there are four of them,” Paul said. “We see them running in the yard. They’re very fat.”
“Does your neighbor have feeders?” the Squirrel Whisperer asked.
“No, we do.”
There was dead silence on the other end. The Squirrel Whisperer disapproved. I have to say, he may have a point.
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