Picture the scene...

A balmy summer's evening, with a gentle breeze gently rustling the leaves in the birch trees. Grasses, dotted with bright yellow butter cups, sway, eased in their gentle slumber by the distant call of a wood pigeon. A pair of swallows dart through the clear blue sky, their distinctive calls conjuring up memories of summer in Italy, or the south of France. All is calm; all is well with the world.

To add to this idyll; this picture of rural calm and tranquillity, a couple of squirrels start frolicking in the garden. Aren't they cute? With their little twitchy noses and their bushy tails, and the way they sit up on their back legs nibbling at a nut, they are cute...and fluffy.    

Yet, as with that golden summer of 1914, this calm, gentle calm, is the calm before the terrible storm. That terrible storm resulting from Nutkin discovering the silver birch by the kitchen. Disturbed by him discovering the air-gap between the guttering and the soffit. Indeed, disturbed by him deciding to forsake the trees - where God intended the Squirrel to dwell - and take up residence in my loft!

Suddenly such cuteness, replete with bushy tale and twitchy nose, becomes a menace. A mangy, flea-ridden, noisy, destructive little b*st*rd. Not only does said little sh1t decide to take up residence in my loft, but he chooses to do so immediately above our bedroom! The last vestiges of cuteness evaporate when woken at 4:30 every morning by a rodent with St Vitus Dance not ten feet from your head, but completely beyond reach!

What to do? Mrs Dreyfus is muttering all sort of murderous intention, both to the aforementioned rodent and to Mr Dreyfus. Not only is there the threat to my well-being, there is also the loss of my much needed beauty-sleep. Worst of all, what havoc will be wreaked with wires and other rather important artifacts dumped stored in the loft?

The time for action was upon us. I decided to hit the internet and find out what steps could be taken to rid us of this pestilence. With many of the sites consulted being predominantly US-based, a number of alternatives were discounted. Blasting our furry friend with a 12-bore would certain dispatch the little s*d, but is also ran the risk of dispatching half the roof as well...which rather defeated the object. Poison ran the risk of someone crawling somewhere inaccessible and dropping dead; leaving his revenge in the form of an all-permeating and irremovable stench of ex-squirrel.

I decided to assess the situation.

Gingerly picking my way through the loft - fortunately tidied a couple of months earlier - I found him...curled up on the loft insulation. This little ball of fluff, cuddling his bushy tail....he was cute; he was fast asleep.

THE B*ST*RD! How dare you wake me up at inconsiderate times, and then drift off in your own sweet time! You deprive me of my sleep, I shall return your gift 1000-fold! I couldn't quite reach him, so stuff was thrown and the strongest vernacular, of the most rural nature, was targeted in his direction. The hint was taken and he scarpered. This was, however, war.

A contraption was obtained from the local agricultural suppliers - the usual supplier of hay and sawdust for the authorised rodents (see avatar) - which transmitted ultra-sound, designed to make their lives such a misery that they would pack up and go and pester someone else. Supreme sacrifices were needed here - the only extension lead long enough was the one used for my layout in the shed! The contraption was plugged in and we waited.

4:30 am - I hear scrabbling in the loft. What's going on, surely they should have taken the hint? Maybe it takes a day or two...I resolve to go up into the loft and shout at them.

4:30 am the next day...same result, only now constant. By 6:30 I'm back up there...only there isn't a squirrel up there...there are two. One is running around, the other is asleep - right next to the ultra sound machine!

That does it!

That evening and CD player is taken into the loft. I decide to serenade our friends with Prodigy's 'Fat of the Land'. The next evening it was a CD of bagpipe music - I knew that Christmas present would come in handy... Thereafter was a burst of Harrison Birtwistle...the full gamut of our music collection was thrown in their direction. To add to this, a concoction of Cayenne and hot chilli powder, mixed with white pepper was spread around. In the main thoroughfares this mixture was combined with Vaseline. Did I say this was war?

We are now five days since our last visitation. It seems this devastating combination has enabled a decent night's sleep at last, along with the saving of my loft, sanity and well being. I'm not counting my chickens, you never know when the bugger will return. That said, I have probably done him a favour; no fox I am aware of would fancy what would be akin to Squirrel vindaloo!

We wait with bated breath...

hi claude 

can hardly type from laughing so much at your tale of woe     

all i can picture in my head is an english version of caddyshack
and we all know how that ended 

seriously i hope you have solved your problem with the fluffy tailed rats and can get a good nights sleep 

dave 

my sides hurt....!!!!

Brilliantly written claude ! Hope you get the little so-and-so's, 'Fat of the the land'...... I'm still chuckling now !

 

Squirrels chewed on my layout, so be careful what they do in your loft!!!

Try to borrow a neighbour's cat or two, and chuck them into the loft for a day or two - no more squirrels, just a ton of cat poo to clear up.

Quote from: Kipper on September 27, 2011, 03:49:37 PM
Try to borrow a neighbour's cat or two, and chuck them into the loft for a day or two - no more squirrels, just a ton of cat poo to clear up.

this will never work with a pampered domestic moggie,  You need nice totally ferocious feral felines.
How you stop them from ripping you to bits after the squirrels are converted into cat poo is another problem.
It could be worse, you could have raccoons.........

That was a great read. Very funny. Glad it is quiet on the Western Front.

Can you fix the hole they got in through? 

Pepper and vaseline was inspired. Had mice once and put poison down. It was the type that is sopposed to preserve them so they don't smell, but one died by a central heating pipe. The stink was awful for weeks.

But thanks for taking the time to turn your misery imto such an amusing tail (i mean tale).

I prefer traps for mice - less smelly and unpleasant, and the humane traps mean you can peer at your victim and then either dump it somewhere far away or feed it to a friends pet snake. The bait I use is cocoa pops - as recommended by a local council rodent remover - mice like cocoa pops and will follow trails of them into traps happily.

Hope my little tale of woe has caused some entertainment.

The mixture of various chilli powders, white pepper and Vaseline has, so far, proved to be an effective deterrent. The Vaseline is intended to make the chilli concoction stick to the fur, making it a far less pleasant - but not fatal - experience for the squatters.

There is no hole as such...they get in through the air gaps which run along the bottom of our roof. If we experience part two of the Invasion of Tufty, then adding some sort of wire mesh may be an option.

Squirrels - like anything else of a small and furry nature - are looking for something quiet, dark and warm to nest in over the winter. Making it smell like a curry house, with unmentionable goo in strategic locations, along with various types of music your mother wouldn't like playing at 500 decibels, would make it as unpleasant a location as a teenager's bedroom - when was the last time a teenager complained about squirrel intrusion in their room?  

I love Squirrels and feel very sorry for the poor little guys, probably got caught up with progress like our Possums in Oz, chop their habitat to pieces and they look elsewhere for a home, stinking developers are to blame.

What colour is you timorous beasty ? if it,s red it's then it's listed  and they are more tasty than the other geezers B/Q wise  cheers john .

Don't worry, my nemesis is an 'unlisted' grey, as opposed to a red; which would have caused me a whole heap of trouble...  I have a recipe for Squirrel fricassee, in case the war takes a more drastic turn.

On a slightly more serious note, there is a fine balancing act between development and nature. I am lucky, I live in a rural area with a lot of trees and wildlife, and accept that living in the back of beyond has its occupational hazards; squirrels, that bl**dy blackbird choosing our garage roof to proclaim his territory at 5:30 in the morning - although we are now too late in the year to experience the full force of the dawn chorus - or the family of field mice living under the shed...which I don't mind so much as they keep themselves to themselves and only really venture as far as the compost heap for the odd left-over from the guinea pigs. My strategy for our visiting Sciurus Carolinensis is to make my loft as uninviting as possible for them...   

A great tailtale told with great feeling I felt.
Have you considered a few ounces of semtex set in corners of the loft as a cunning squiggles destroyer?
Wired to a power suply it can be very effective

Thank you very very much I am nearly hysterical thanks to you. Bravo

Quote from: jonclox on September 28, 2011, 09:51:03 AM
Have you considered a few ounces of semtex set in corners of the loft as a cunning squiggles destroyer?

Just a few ounces in each corner would take off the roof and probably half of the walls around it!
Semtex is powerful stuff, thats why its used in mining as its a good blasting agent.
I'd stick with the curried vaseline!

Great story though, well told.
Hope your rid of the furry menace!