Wednesday, July 12, 2006

the squirrel story.

I hate them. I hate squirrels...and here is the long awaited story.


Our central air is on the blink. It ultimately needs replacing, and so we've been getting estimates. In the mean time, we borrowed a window unit from my in-laws to go in the girls' room. The side things were still there, but the middle stuff had been torn out, so we wrapped towels around and stuffed them in there all around the air conditioner. The girls had a nice cool room until we could get the new central unit.

One evening, Ana claimed to hear something in the towel. With our rodent history, my first thought was a mouse.....hubby thought maybe a bird, but as he got in there, he noticed that it was much bigger than a bird. It was ...

a squirrel.

We scared it out, put out moth balls, re-stuffed the towels, and hoped it wouldn't come back. Everything was nice, we heard no noise, had no strange nesting materials hanging out of the towels; all was well. We went on vacation.

We left Ana in GA, so Maura was sleeping in the room alone. A few nights ago, there was no street parking, so we had to park in the driveway behind our house, next to our small little porch with the stairs that lead up to the door and window where the unit is. I see some trash sticking up out of the towel. My first thought is "oh lord, that thing is BACK!!!" I told hubby to go and check it out....be a man, assess the situation. He goes up and grabs a stick on the way, and bangs on the unit a little bit. No response. He pokes the towel.....SQUIRREL HEAD pops up, and she was MAD. Hubby is trying to scare her out of the area...banging the unit, the wall, poking at her...she's grabbing the stick and biting it and making these horrible shrill noises... it was awful. He goes inside to try from the inside out. No avail, and the towel is starting to give a little...and I'm praying that the squirrel doesn't get into the room. He comes back out, and I go inside, trying to work with him. I put Maura in her crib - who, by the way is laughing the whole time - and proceeded to the window. Billy tells me that she is gone. YAY! The squirrel is GONE!!....So i'm thinking, lets just remove the whole window unit, towels and all....so i'm trying to help him get it out of the window..when all the while, this crazy ass squirrel is running up the stair rail and charging and jumping at my husband, and he's fighting her off. We get the window open, take one towel out, then move to the other towel, where the squirrel had nested, so there's trash and leaves and such in it, and i'm all freaked out already...so the towel unravels and opens up and all this crap falls to the floor...and then...i see it... on the window sill..

little pink squirrel BABY!!!!!!

oooh...i'm getting the willies just talking about it again. It was tiny and still pink and eyes closed and everything. No wonder the mother was so protective....So Billy pulls the towel out and the baby goes with the towel to the bushes where the mother was......then i remember all the trash that had fallen to the floor in the room I was in.,...my daughters' room. I look down between the bed and the wall....trash, pieces of towel, leaves,

2 MORE SQUIRREL BABIES.....AHHHH!

I freaked out. Ever since an incident with wharf rats in my mother's attic, i have had a HUGE phobia of rodents. I have no desire to hurt them I just don't want them in my house, or near me...I just wanted them AWAY and I didn't want to see them...I run out....left Maura in the crib - who is still laughing at me - and I run down stairs to where my husband is and tell him. By now, the neighbors are out...the downstairs neighbor talking about how dirty they are and how they have rabies and then another guy called Corey that reminds me of Pablo was listening to Billy recount his story. I tell him about the babies, and ask him not to hurt them and he goes in and scoops them up on a dust pan, and comes out to return them to the mother, who is charging him and Corey. The babies were squealing. I can still hear it.

So it's over now. I read on the internet that squirrels often have a back up nest because the male tries to kill the babies, so hopefully she had one. They also don't mind their babies smelling like humans...so hopefully they all made it back to their mother.

i'm just glad they're out of my house.

No comments: