Satan the Squirrel

My husband and I have a repulsion for squirrels. If we see one anywhere near our house, we both start getting an uncontrollable nervous twitch. We have anger fantasies towards them. The thought of a squirrel concentration camp. Maybe poisonous gas involved. Oooh – - or an execution lineup.

I’m sure you’re thinking that we’re horrible people about now. Who would feel that way towards such cute, innocent woodland creatures?

Oh, we have our reasons. I promise.

Rewind a couple of years, one less family member, and a house ago. Back in our cozy townhouse at Whisper Wood. It was a lovely place – our very first home! We had rented a different townhouse for our first year of marriage, then bought this townhouse that we thought was tha bomb – it had a jacuzzi tub the size of a hot tub, a huge master bedroom and bathroom, and we painted every room all sorts of bright fun colors to make it look like it just got featured in “Trading Spaces”. It was great.

But then the hellish cruelty challenges of home ownership set in. You know, washing-machine-leaking-the-first-time-it-was-turned-on-and-ruining-the-hallway-paint-in-a-mega-way, unbelievable roof leaks, lawn maintenance, etc. It kinda took away some of the romance, but we kept going, as chipper as ever about our new house.

Until we met Satan the Squirrel and his lovely wife, Mrs. StS.

We first heard them in the attic, chewing. It was OBNOXIOUS. They would only start their chewing thing when we laid down to go to bed, and so we would lay there, eyes wide open, looking toward the ceiling in their general direction, just wondering what electrical wiring they were chewing through that was about to burn down the whole place.

Our attic was very hard to maneuver, so it was very challenging to deal with them.

Chris and our wonderful neighbor Darrel found their entry point and blocked it off from the outside.

But the chewing continued. Apparently they had trapped one inside the attic.

So Chris and Darrel get out the ladder again, and while they’re climbing up. StS was on our porch (not trapped) starts “screaming” at them. Apparently we had trapped Mrs. StS in there and he was not happy.

He kept screaming and screaming. If you’ve never heard a squirrel scream, you’re a lucky person.

They opened up the hole, and little wifey ran out as fast as she could. They closed the hole again. Problem solved!

However, I could still hear them sometimes from my shower – since it was right by their entry point, we figured they were trying to get back in to get to their nut stash. One morning while I was waking up in the shower, it was especially loud.

scratch, scratch, scratch.

I tried to ignore it. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught some movement, I jump, thinking it was my biggest fear, a roach, of course. I look over, and right by my head in the corner of the shower is a squirrel nose peeking through the wall!!!!!!!

I SCREAM AS LOUD AS I CAN.

Chris doesn’t hear me.

I jump out of the shower and SCREAM AGAIN.

He comes running in there and I point to the hole in the wall the size of a quarter that wasn’t there just a few minutes before.

“The squirrel! He was! His nose! In my shower! Helppppppp!!!”

(Editor’s note: I believe it was at this point where I started referring to my Shower-Peeping-Tom as “Satan the Squirrel”)

Turns out that they could still get just barely into the eave of the house, but they couldn’t get to their nut stash. And every time I started the water in my shower, they started digging, somehow thinking that the noise was their nut stash calling out for them.

Chris gets a trusty can of Great Stuff and fills the hole full on the inside, then repatches the outside of the house AGAIN.

The previous owners had generously bestowed upon us the leftovers of tacky wall paper that went in that bathroom (as it was the spare bedroom’s bathroom, it was the one room we never painted). So we simply put a new sheet up over the great-stuff-filled hole. One day when the new owner decides to un-paper that bathroom, they are going to say “what in the world??”

That took care of our problem for that winter. However, the next winter always comes, as does Satan the Squirrel.

And THAT is another story for another day. Friday, specifically.