....in the wall above the baseboards in the Bear Room. For those
of you who have never been to my house, yes....I have a Bear Room. You
can guess what it looks like.....and yes, I change it around for the
seasons/holidays. But I digress.....
Last week I'm minding my
own business, watching TV in said Bear Room when I hear scratching
coming from behind the outside wall to my right - just behind the
outlets. I mute the TV thinking that I must be hearing things. The
scratching continues....and, worse yet, it's moving! I'm pretty sure
that nobody is outside my house scratching to get in, but just in case I
look out the window and down. No one in sight.
I ask SBJ
(Sweet Baby James) to come into the Bear Room to listen as I mute the TV
again. We BOTH hear the scratching and he says, "WTF?" I tell him we
must have a critter in the wall. I call ONMB (Oh No Mr. Bill) to come
listen to the scratching as well. No scratching to be heard. ONMB asks
me if I'm hearing things and I explain that since both SBJ and I heard
it, that I'm pretty sure there's something in the wall. ONMB looks less
than concerned and tells me if I'm really worried to call Orkin to have
them take a look. I call them and make an appointment - the soonest
they can get here is this Wednesday. I suppose I can live with the
scratching until then.
Flash forward to Friday the 29th.....HFS
(handyman friend Sheldon) is helping ONMB plant some trees and is told
of the noises I'm hearing. HFS believes me and finds a missing stone
where the siding meets the lannon stone outside the wall of the Bear
Room. Lo and behold, he flushes out several baby squirrels. They
scatter out and around the corners of the house. HFS plugs the entry
with some aluminum of some sort to keep them out until he can come back
to mortar up the holes (yes - he found a couple more).
ONMB
must now admit that I wasn't hearing things. HFS did come back and
mortar up the holes and sure enough - no more scratching noises to be
heard. I am however worried about the displaced baby squirrels...not so
much for myself but for ONMB.
This is the guy who has made
sure (over the course of the last several years) that the baby foxes
holed up in our back yard were OK, that "Hedgy" (his name for the
hedgehog in residence under our shed) had scraps and that the
neighborhood stray cats had food and water when they came around. Last
week Bill even saw a family of raccoons at the edge of our property. He
said something like, "I guess they know where to come." No doubt
honey. They were probably waiting for you to seat them and give them
menus. I bet it's only a matter of time before I see those baby
squirrels around waiting for Bill to toss them something. It better not
be any of my favorite snacks or he'll be the one getting tossed.
Original date Sunday, May 31, 2009
