Day 1 - Me vs. the squirrels
OK, so it’s not day 1. Those of you who know me well know that I have a somewhat… unhealthy problem with squirrels. They have caused damage in my house, and cost me a lot of money.
I don’t find them cute, I don’t find them cuddly, I don’t find them endearing or entertaining.
I find them to be rats, with a special dose of public relations granted them by Satan himself.
I hope they die. All of them. I don’t care about the implications to the ecosystem.
And today, I took yet another step to eliminate them from my neighborhood. I have put a live trap out behind my house. (Yes, it captures them alive… what happens to them after I catch them won’t be detailed here, and is an exercise left to the reader’s imagination)
I don’t honestly expect it to work, although the person I borrowed it from insists that it has worked in the past (and even expressed some surprise that the bones from the last victim were not still inside [I didn't leave them in there... don't write ME the hate mail])
I’ll update the success (or, as expected, lack of) as it happens.
So far, the closest thing I have had to a success lately against rodentia has been a confirmed kill of a rat (a BIG f-ing rat, with a… never mind, does anyone remember that joke?) yesterday. He was quite impressive, and the rat was quite dead.
Now if I can train him to catch squirrels…
I don’t envy your new battle, Matt. My father’s been fighting squirrels for years. He’s got an electric fence line about 4″ off the ground of his chain-link fence (for the purposes of keeping the dog(s) from digging under the fence), and always has this odd sense of pride when a squirrel finds itself tangled up in the mess.
A couple of years ago, he started trapping them as well, then taking them across town to the wooded area next to the junior high and releasing them there. He said once, he released a squirrel out of its trap and all the other squirrels came running up to it — so he really thought he’d caught the squirrel equivalent of the Queen Bee.
My favorite story, though, was about a year ago when my brother went home to help my dad with a yard project … and when I asked, George just said he spent the day “digging trenches.” My immediate reaction was to inquire if my dad was building a moat around the house to thwart the squirrels. Sadly (for this story), it was only to install a sprinkler system.
GOOD LUCK!!
Let’s just say that I won’t be releasing any that I catch.
I’m not going to torture the little critters, but I’m not going to let them chew someone else’s wiring either.
I don’t know that I will be taking the neighbor’s suggestion on how to dispose of them either…