Squirrelly Business

I'm from Utah originally, so the only time I ever saw squirrels was on camping trips into the wild where their adorable scampering became synonymous with happy, holy nature. When I started school at Bryn Mawr College out on this end of the country, I was amazed at the hundreds of squirrels around, doing their adorable scampering business all over the lawns of my new school. I said to my friends, "Look at all the squirrels! Aren't they so cute? I just love all the squirrels here!"

Of course, they all looked at me like I had developed instant leprosy and were likely also wondering if I had a possible malignant brain tumor to boot. (I had a similar experience once--on the giving end--when my friend Miriam commented out loud how cute she thought cows were. I think we were watching some TV program. I asked her, "Have you actually SEEN a cow in real life?" She admitted that she hadn't. I told her I would give her a tour of their fetid stinky "cuteness" next time she visited me out in rural northern Utah).

The truth is, squirrels are the rats of New Jersey (though, don't get me wrong, we have rats here, too. They are, however, surprisingly less annoying than squirrels). Ah, yes, they are fuzzy-tailed, light-footed bundles of cuddliness, but there's a reason they are all over people's lawns and trees. They are not there to pose for pictures. They are little anarchists. They do not acknowledge your property rights.

More frankly, your house. Come winter-time, squirrels like to nest in hollow trees which are dry and cozy. Your attic is the biggest, nicest hollow tree a squirrel has ever laid eyes on. Your attic is the holy grail of hollow trees. It is not just cozy: it has its own heat source. It's as warm as summertime in there! And spacious, too. This Jersey rat has just landed the squirrel-equivalent of a New York City penthouse. 

And just like a new and annoying young Hollywood starlet occupying said penthouse, it doesn't know the meaning of "bedtime". In fact, that's when the party is just getting started. It's up there, with its little squirrel friends and its squirrel catering service, and just possibly its hordes of squirrel offspring, at all hours of the night scampering here and scampering there, making sure everyone is having a good time and there's enough squirrel drink to go around, while the crotchety old neighbors downstairs (us!) are trying to get some badly needed rest. Banging on the ceiling will cause everything to go quiet for a few seconds, but soon enough, the party starts right back up again and this time, there are no squirrel police you can call about noise violations.

As you may have determined, we currently have a squirrel in our attic. It arrives around 7 pm, just as darkness is setting in and leaves again around 7 am when Nate is heading to work. Attempts to scare it into leaving, such as screaming, stomping, banging, and sticking squirrel dolls with pins, have done nothing other than turn us into screaming, stomping, banging, voodoo'ing lunatics. The squirrel is quite content to live above such chaos. Meanwhile, I had to sleep yesterday with earplugs in, which was great for not hearing the squirrel all night long, but also meant if my children were screaming bloody murder for their mommy, I missed that, too. 

Tonight, Dave, our handyman, is coming by to look for holes in the roof where our squirrel starlet squatter is getting in and tomorrow an exterminator will be coming to live trap the creature and cart it off to someone else's backyard. Hopefully that will be the end of it.

We'll see.