As referenced in previous chapters, I moved to a Money Pit farmhouse this past summer.
I’d stored many boxes of clothes, books, linens and such, in a spare bedroom.
Once I’d pulled out of the boxes the day-to-day clothes and items I used, other than the picking away at random items needed over time, I never really entered the storage room. My plan was to clean the big, rambling, falling-down farmhouse from the outside in, starting with the porches–it would be quite a while before I got to that room.
But recently, I was looking for a certain pillow. I made my way to the large cardboard moving box that said in in my writing in thick black marker, “PILLOWS, SHEETS, TOWELS.” The top flap of the box was partly open, as I’d already pulled a bunch of stuff out of that box.
This time, when I looked in the box, while I’d been looking for a pillow, on top I noticed one of my favorite towels I’d forgotten about. I was excited to use it again. Yay!
Only to shake it open to find a hole in it that was the size of maybe an extremely large apple fritter.
I looked underneath where the towel had been. There were my extra pillowcases, with tiny nibbles in those as well.
Argh. Mice. Again!
They must be building a nest.
I immediately closed the tops of all the open boxes, and drove directly to Walmart.
I was fearful of the risk of setting snap mousetraps, so I bought a dozen different non-snap traps that looked like they would work, and set them throughout the house, most of them in the storage room.
Every day, I checked the traps.
Nothing.
How could this be?
After a few weeks of empty traps, I came home from work to find a pile of debris below the large hole in the kitchen ceiling which had been bashed through in the October timeframe (see Chapter II).
It looked like matted, dark, shredded leaves all over the floor.
I swept them up. What would have caused that to happen, months after the ceiling fell in? I called a friend to ask what they thought. “It could just be the wind,” they said. The wind? The Money Pit had a lot of problems including air coming through the original 1893 windows, but it didn’t seem very “windy” in there. I let it go. Hmm.
The next day I came home to another pile of debris. Hmm.
The NEXT day I came home to what looked like a fairly large, tangled stretch of bright green and yellow yarn, hanging from one of the water pipes exposed in the ceiling. It was a two-foot long vertical braid–sort of artistic, as a matter of fact–hanging from the empty section of kitchen ceiling. Hmm.
Was this part of a mouse nest? I cut the yarn down and inspected it. The strands were not gray, blue and white like my favorite towel. I searched my brain. Did I have any sweaters or blankets that were bright green and yellow? I didn’t think so.
My son was home. He said, You know, that looks an awful lot like that old chair in the living room that we haven’t junked yet.
We went to check it out. Sure enough, a large chunk of the lower back dust ruffle of that chair was decimated.
This couldn’t be the work of a lowly mouse.
It must be a SQUIRREL.
A squirrel. In my house. That could have ripped my face off in my sleep (if it knew how to open the bedroom door, which luckily I kept locked). GAH!!!!!!!!
I went up to that storage room and oddly enough, for the first time, heard the pitter patter of little feet above me, in the attic. A little while later, I heard the pitter patter below me, in between the second and first floors, which is where the hole in the kitchen ceiling is. It sounded like a dozen squirrels, but probably only two. Or so.
The next step was figuring out where they were getting in. I inspected the house from the outside and found no hole. I had a neighbor come over with a ladder who also could find no hole. Obviously there was a hole. We just couldn’t find it. Hmm.
So, how to take care of this. In terms of “rodent elimination,” — well, I’m the first person to pick up a spider in a paper towel and put it outside (only for it to come right back inside, I’m sure.) But my perspective is, — what if I had been born a spider? I would want someone to do that for me. The only animal or insect I might do away with is an aggressive yellowjacket.
The thought of doing away with one or more squirrels was unpalatable. They are so cute with their big brown eyes! Their fluffy tails! And look at their talents with crocheting yarn from the old chair! Squirrels may be vastly underestimated.
So I set have-a-heart traps.
They weren’t falling for it.
Then, much to my dismay, I had a neighbor set non-have-a-heart-kill-traps. These things just can’t be running around my house trying to rip my face off.
The good news is, we didn’t kill anything. The other good news is, I have not heard one pitter-patter since the yarn nest started dangling.
I’d like to think that they heard me lose my sh–. I had told them gently, or maybe screamed it: “Listen, you will face a certain death if you stay in this house.”
I called the wildlife management companies and they won’t help. They said, “We won’t go that far out into the country.” Which sort of makes no sense because WHERE ELSE IS WILDLIFE BUT IN THE COUNTRY! The only thing you can do is to help yourself.
As the priest in the Exorcist said, “GET OUT!”
And they did get out. I think. I hope.
So as to hauntings, squirrels and otherwise.
If you recall Chapter III, you’ll remember that I spent most of my Christmas gift budget fixing the driveway to enable the propane furnace fuel delivery truck to be able to access the tank so I had heat.
When they showed up last week to inspect for leaks, one said: “I grew up down the hill in town. Us kids were SCARED TO DEATH of your place. They said that there were ghosts in the windows, and no one should ever go up there.”
I responded, “Ghosts are the least of my problems. Keep that rumor going–and tell the squirrels, too.”
Datren says
Possibly glue board traps? D-con is what i ised….