I was lying in bed last night when I heard someting scurrying above my head. I had heard that sound before and I knew what it was. The squirrels are back in the attic again.
Outside this afternoon I walked around to the side of the house and studied the spot near the roof directly over my bed. It’s a gable end and it has louvers made of wood that let in air so that the attic stays cool. Sure enough I could see that one of the louvers had been broken and the wire mesh behind it pushed aside.
In the twelve years I have lived here this has happened twice before, once in this same spot and once at another gable. The first time it happened I crawled up there and spied one of my long-lost work gloves laying next to a wall. I went over and picked it up and there were three tiny squirrel babies underneath. I put the glove back and climbed downstairs. Later after I was sure they were not in the nest anymore I went up and closed up the hole to the outside.
Most of the houses around here that are constructed like mine have these gable louvers made of steel, but in my house they are made of wood. In a 60-year-old house wood starts needing replacement but there is no way I am going to be able to measure and cut replacement louvers. I have a hard enough time with a simple 45 degree miter cut. Just thinking about the angles on these pieces is enough to make my head hurt. The board lies at an angle to the horizontal and the ends have to be cut to the angle of the roof. No, I can’t figure out those cuts and get the length of the board right too. I will have to see if the existing one can be salvaged.
So tomorrow after work I expect to be in the attic, looking for baby squirrels and making an assesment of the repairs that will be needed.
Comments (5)
Could be worse - rats.
We have bird feeders out back that attract a fair number of squirrels. They can be destructive, but are such a delight to watch.
Can you take one of the undamaged louvers down for a pattern to cut by?
This almost exact same scenario was played out last year 300 miles to your west. Squirrels are a new inhabitant in Midland, just in the last 12 years, but have taken over the town. They have chewed up my lawn furniture, dug holes in the flower beds and displaced the pansies in the pots.
But last year was the tops, one got into our attic and I apparently closed off his means of egress so that he started “digging” thru the interior ceiling directly above our marital bed, scaring the peewaddling out of the bride. We could just imagine that little head poking thru at an inappropriate time. The problem was solved when the little visitor apparently died; we notice this, of course, because of the odor of dead squirrel that invaded our bedroom for a week or so.
Be sure you get pictures before you evict them!!
I have several friends in GA going through the same ordeal. Being the animal-friendly types that they are, they usually trap the little beasts (in a no-kill trap) and drive them FAR out of town. Then it’s time to get sealin’ those access points as well.
My daughter and her fiancee recently had problems with rats in the attic. They tried the usual traps with peanut butter to no avail. Finally called this guy from out of the paper to come give them an estimate for pest control. The expert obviously had been sniffing his own chemicals for many years, a few french fries short a Happy Meal. Told them “Yew could trap ‘em, but sometimes it don’t git ‘em all, or yew could poison ‘em, then them’s gonna stank”.