I have squirrels in my attic...

[nekosensei]

By saying that I have squirrels in my attic, I don't mean that I am nuts or anything. I literally have squirrels in my attic. On Monday or Tuesday morning, I was lying in bed and I heard a gnawing sound that reminded me of the time my parents had a mouse. At the time, we had a dog that loved killing mice in our garage, but she had gotten old, blind, and possibly a bit senile. Mr. Mouse decided to take advantage of that and snack on her dog food, which we stored in our living room closet.

Back to my original story. I wandered around my bedroom and opened closets and drawers to make sure that there wasn't a mouse hiding somewhere. A closet door made too much noise as I was shutting it, and the critter must have heard it because it stopped gnawing. Over the past couple of days, I heard occasional gnawing and scampering coming from the ceiling.

When I told doomsey about it, he talked to his parents, and his dad said that I was probably hearing a squirrel on the roof. Okay. Fine. The next time I heard it, I pointed it out to doomsey, and he seemed to think that a) it was just the wind or b) something banging together because of the wind.

Then we have this morning. I woke up early because I heard a lot of gnawing and frolicking. doomsey tried to assure me that it was the wind and that it was probably a tree branch hitting the roof. Then I said, "if it's a tree branch hitting the roof, then why do I only hear it during the morning?" I was confused because I never heard it during the afternoon or at night. At that point, doomsey opened up the window and noticed that there wasn't much wind. Then, he went outside and looked at the roof. He said that he could have sworn that he saw an overturned roof tile, and he's going to go up on a ladder later today to take a closer look. Also, we didn't see any squirrels scampering on the roof, so that means that they're probably in the attic. Before going back to bed, doomsey tried pounding on the ceiling of our bedroom to see what would happen. The noise stopped for a few minutes and then gradually resumed. Yep. Definitely a critter. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a squirrel because it's only active in the morning and I've seen squirrels shimmy up the porch and climb onto our roof earlier this spring.

This morning, doomsey and I joked around about sticking a cat up there to see what would happen. And of course, I had to make a crack about putting some of my rat poison Warfarin tablets up there too. This morning, I called Terminix because we have a contract with them. They're going to come out and inspect on Tuesday morning. I'm hoping that they'll trap whatever is up there and release it. And I don't want to try trapping it myself because I'm afraid that there will be a nest up there, that the babies will die without their mother, and come July, that the upper floors of my house will start to smell something fierce.

Comments

[jlindquist.livejournal.com]

The last couple of years at the old house in Northbrook, we had a perpetual squirrel problem. One of the vents under the eaves fell out, and it was a quick hop up their from a nearby pine tree. When I was home, I could watch them hop up the tree, practically wave hello to me through the window, then hop into the attic. Dad would put the vent grate back, but it (or another one) would get knocked out. We heard all the noise, and were just "WTF?" about it. By then, nobody was living at home but the folks, and the noise wasn't over THEIR bedroom, so they just let it go.

When I cleaned stuff out of the attic, I found out why those squirrels were so recalcitrant. AND why my room was so damned cold. A heating duct joint fell apart. What should have been my heat was warming up half the attic.

I plugged the duct back together, and figured the new owners could worry about the problem.

Squirrels in the attic

[(Anonymous)]

This is my first year with the problem and I heard the same sounds you did, also mainly in the morning. I got a pest control company who, after evicting the squirrels, put heavy guage wire cages over the roof vents (that's where they came in) so I'm hoping I got rid of them for good. Only time will tell. Good luck to you!

squirrels in the attic

[(Anonymous)]

To get squirrels out of your attic, check my new invention on ebay. Search for squirrel attic repellent. It's cheap and effective.