Saturday, March 08, 2008
I, Elmer
It all started a couple months ago. Late at night, in the deep frozen heart of the prairie summer, Mrs. Mentok and I heard a bone-chilling sound: little feet scampering up the walls. Within a few days, we could also hear sounds coming from the attic.
We had gone to war against mice in our basement last summer and won. We now knew all the tricks for preventing and extracting rodents from the basement. But the attic? That was a whole new ball game.
We took a trip to the local hardware store and loaded up on glue traps, which we had found was the #1 most effective method in the basement. We crawled up into the attic and distributed as many glue traps as we could. Then we waited.
When we went back to check on the traps, something quite odd had happened. They had been moved, some of them quite far, in the direction of an apparent nesting area. But it looked as though whatever had stepped in them had managed to shake them off. That couldn't have been easy, because while checking I got one on my own hand. Even with brisk shaking, it didn't come off. While flailing about trying to get it off, I managed to get another on my knee. I reached down to take that one off, but forgot I was using the hand that already had a glue trap on it, so I succeeded only in getting the two traps stuck together. I finally yanked them off but managed to hit my head very hard on the rafters while doing so.
Anyway, that's when we knew were dealing with something larger than a mouse.
A few days later, we saw footprints in the snow on our roof that confirmed the awful truth: we had squirrels.
Well, one squirrel anyway. I've seen him:
He's much larger, redder and meaner looking in real life.
I've dubbed him Rasputin. I don't know why. He's just seems somehow Russian and very evil.
Not to mention cocky. Once, I got within a few feet of the little bastard, just outside my reach. He just stared back at me. When I move forward to try to whack him with a stick, he nimbly moved back a few feet, just far enough for me to lose my footing and fall into a snowbank.
Another time, he perched up in a tree branch within sight of me. I grabbed a garbage can lid and hurled it at him. I was pleased but, sadly, unprepared for the fact that the lid achieved a boomerang effect, just like in Captain America comics.
Another trip to the hardware store. This time, I brought back this nasty looking device, designed to snare rats, squirrels and (incongruously) minks. I carefully set the trap in the backyard, certain that so much steel was certain to yield results.
The next morning, the trap was gone. Just vanished.
I wouldn't be half as determined if Rasputin was a reasonably good house guest, but that's not the case. Night after night, he disturbs our sleep as he rolls in at all hours to settle in for the night. Every morning, he freaks us out at breakfast when he does his daily nesting ritual, which is so noisy that it sounds like he's going to break through the kitchen ceiling. Sometimes I pound on the ceiling in an effort to scare him away. I swear sometimes it sounds like he's pounding back.
This morning, the boys and I took our dog out for a walk. Our beloved canine is a schnoodle, half poodle, half Schnauzer. He has always displayed excellent natural hunting-dog traits. As we approached the back yard, I spied Rasputin, with his back to us, sitting on the picnic table munching on a morsel of garbage.
"Ha ha ha," I said to the boys. "Be very, very quiet."
I let the dog go. He knew exactly what to do. He's always had fantastic leaping abilities and within two or three bounds he was within range of the despicable varmit.
SNAP!
We found out where the trap had gone. Fortunately, it's jaws weren't strong enough to do any real harm to a canine.
And so the battle continues. Wish me luck.
Labels: Be vewy, vewy quiet
posted by Mentok @ 1:49 p.m.,
5 Comments:
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At 1:48 a.m.,
adam said...
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My old classroom had a family of squirrels living in the roof. They took over one of the store cupboards completely, turned it into a nest (the one right next to the boiler, obviously). There was a rumour, one of those urban myths that does the rounds in school, that once, a few years ago, a partially decomposed dead squirrel had fallen through the ceiling onto somebody's desk in the middle of a lesson.
So when they repainted the huts they put a squirrel proof roof on (yep, there really is such a thing). It was very expensive.
And then I came back in after a two week break and saw, as I walked through the door, a tidy little pile of squirrel leavings in the middle of the floor, and the smallest of small holes in the ceiling.
They laughed at our squirrel proof roof.
I can only wish you luck. -
At 11:52 a.m.,
Grumps said...
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I've been telling you this for years, Mentok. You've got squirrels in your attic!
Mrs. Grumps is going to get a kick out of that. -
At 11:48 a.m.,
cchang said...
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Poor doggie.
Ya know the squirrels around campus are just frightening. They've got such entitlement issues (I suppose from getting fed by students regularly) that come up to you and wait for you until you give them food. They don't seem to behave this way up in the North East colleges either it seems because T was truly terrified, the first time he came down to visit and noticed a whole army of them following him around the trails as he was munching on peanuts.
I wish you luck in removing this critter. -
At 11:28 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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crash - "squirrel proof". Hah, that is rich. Maybe when someone invents a force-field that might be possible, but otherwise I don't see how it could be.
grumps - oh yeah, well you've got bats in your belfry. So there!
cindy - yes, it's really a psychological war with these urban squirrels. And you hit the nail on the head about their entitlement issues. I've read that they're tremendously territorial. They say that even if you take an urban squirrel 30 miles away from it's home neighbourhood, it will eventually find its way back because all the other squirrels will chase him away from their turf. -
At 12:59 p.m.,
Rick said...
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Rasputin the Russian sqwrrl. I like it. Does that make you Boris & Mrs. Mentok Natasha?
My dad went to war once with the sqwrrls that had decided the bird feeder was really meant for them. He set out cage-type traps and baited them with... I don't know what. Anyway, it worked and he caught the pesky varmit(s). He exacted further revenge by transporting them, caged, in the open back of his pickup truck, about 5 miles down the road to a nearby park, where he would release them. The catch was that by the time they got to the park, the poor critters were totally wigged out.
You might give that a go. Try borscht.
