Probably Definitely: The Unwanted Visitor

A sound came from our attic attracting our attention. It was as if someone had climbed into the house and was doing their best to saw through our ceiling. Even our cat watched the ceiling warily, her tail flicking back and forth as her eyes narrowed with each sound. "Some thing is up there," Dustin said, "Probably a squirrel." We didn't do much right away, I guess we were hoping the squirrel would leave on his own accord. But after many nights of being woken by his activity and beating on walls hoping to scare him off we knew we had to do something. Dustin called various pest control companies, the only one who called him back came out to give us a free estimate. He informed us that we needed to scale down our neighborhood's squirrel population. For $350 he would place two traps outside of our house and catch as many as they could. They would then relocate them and once they felt they had our squirrel they would, for an additional $700, patch the holes the little rascal had discovered. We were hesitant and unsure, I mean, would catching all the squirrels really help especially when we just wanted to get rid of one? And by the way, how would they know they caught our squirrel? After speaking with different people we know, we borrowed a squirrel trap from a friend of ours. After placing in a rice cake with peanut butter, Dustin set the trap.

We didn't catch the squirrel right away and when we discovered a small hole in our ceiling created by our little friend, the war was on. Dustin raked aside insulation that was in the attic and relocated the trap. The next few days were quiet, almost as though the squirrel realized he had been discovered. But a few mornings later I woke up to a sound in the attic, it sounded like a trapped animal but I wasn't sure. When we got home from work we checked the attic. Sitting quietly in the trap was our unwanted visitor. We had finally caught him! After a few moments Dustin was able to pull out the trap and brought it downstairs.

A very happy and relieved Dustin

The plan was to relocate him. We put the trap in the trunk and drove ten minutes away to our selected location. By this point the squirrel was scared and going crazy. He jumped from one side of the cage to other, gnawing away at the metal bars. The trap was tricky to open and not wanting to get bit, Dustin used a stick to let him free. As soon as he realized he could escape the squirrel was gone. He is, I'm sure, happy in his new home and we are very happy without him in ours.