Sciurus domestis?

[xiphias]

So, Anna, our upstairs tenant and marquisedea's mother, called us yesterday with a problem

See, there's this squirrel that's been getting into her house.

I went up there to take a look at it.

The thing's chewed holes in the screens of her kitchen windows, and climbed in. It's been doing this for a couple days -- it chewed through one screen, and climbed in and ate a piece of bread. So Anna kept that window closed, and it chewed through the OTHER window's screen, and came in, and opened the candy jars on the kitchen table to get chocolate.

Fixing the screens shouldn't be THAT hard -- but that won't solve the problem. The FIRST step is to get the squirrel!

You'd think that a house in which cats live on every single floor would not be as attractive a place for squirrels. But, no, not one of the cats in the house pays any particular ATTENTION to squirrels, so they could just wander in, eat the cat food out of all the bowls. . . I don't know if any of them HAVE yet, but they could.

We're trying to figure out how to get the squirrel. Our current theory is to put a Havahart trap on the kitchen table with food in it. Now we just need to get a Havahart trap, which are sold at Home Depot, so I'll get that tonight if Lis comes home with the car soon, or tomorrow afternoon otherwise.

Then we need to figure out what we're going to do once we GET the squirrel, but we'll deal with that problem later.

Comments

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

Release it in a park across town.

Don't touch it, they have fleas and parasites and they also bite.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, the three things I was considering were "release in a park", "drown it", or "make it into a pet." "Release in a park" is the hands-down favorite, though.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I think killing it would be cruel and rather silly. It's not doing anything dangerous or unusual; it's just being a squirrel.

[cheshyre]

Well, the three things I was considering were "release in a park", "drown it", or "make it into a pet." "Release in a park" is the hands-down favorite, though.

I suggested a fourth option of selling it on EBay, but Ian didn't like that idea.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much you could get for a squirrel on Ebay?

[elynne.livejournal.com]

*bursts out laughing*

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

If you don't want to buy a trap, go to your local humane shelter and they should loan you out a humane trap for free.

We have squirrels that get into the walls here - the management still hasn't plugged up the holes they get in from.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Naw; I should buy a squirrel trap. This isn't going to be the only squirrel we're going to have to trap, and they're only forty bucks or so.

They get into the attic all the time -- which sucks, because we don't HAVE an attic. But we can hear them running around in the walls and ceiling sometimes. . .

[banshee99.livejournal.com]

I hate to break it to you - but something we found out is that squirrels are territorial. What does this mean to you? It means that if you remove all the squirrels, more will move into the vacated territory. :(

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Once squirrels discover the joys of indoor snack bars, it's pretty difficult to keep them out. You might look into predator pee (no, really), applied to cotton balls or rags near the entry points. I know people who've had excellent results from eau de fox.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Be careful, or you'll end up in the Melrose Free Press police log. I don't know if you read it, but it's prety funny.

(Though not nearly as good as the Arcata Eye.)

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing you running around the place like Bill Murray in Caddyshack. "here, squirrel..."

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

there are always more options for what to do with squirrel, than you'd first supect.

i'd go with the creole, myself. but then again, i like spicy food. :D

n.

[cheshyre]

Alas, we keep a kosher kitchen, so none of those are possible for us.
Then again, our tenants don't...

I just want to show the (caged) squirrel to our cat to see whether she recognizes it as prey, and if she has any instincts for anything other than moths.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My father is a contractor. He does high-end custom residential construction. This means that his clients are all the richest people in Boston.

One day, he was talking to a client. They were standing in the kitchen of the Belmont estate where they had one of their North American homes. As they were chatting, the lady of the house happened to look out into the kitchen garden, and said, "Pardon me a moment."

She opened a cabinet behind her, took out the air rifle, opened the window and the screen, pumped up the airgun, and fired into one of the trees. She then called her younger son over, who ran out into the garden, pulled out a clasp knife, skinned, gutted, and dressed the squirrel she'd shot, came back inside, threw it in a ziplock bag, and threw it into the freezer.

"I hate squirrels," the lady of the house said. "Sorry, go ahead with what you were saying."

Apparently, when they get enough squirrels, they have the chef make stew. Or they just make it themselves, since everyone in the family can field-dress and cook game, including small game.

How about?

[wargoddess.livejournal.com]

Why don't you get it drunk until it passes out, then sell it a sea captain to use as an oarsman?

Or you could spray moth-proof on the screens, they hate that. Mothballs work too, rub the screens with them Of course you then have to deal with the scent of mothballs...

Oh well, I'm no help.

>^,^

[(Anonymous)]

Just put the chocolate outside Problem solved.

(Remember to keep replacing the chocolate, of course. You might want to vary the selection to keep the squirrel from getting bored. They seem to like peanut butter.)

[mitchellf.livejournal.com]

First of all: I am so sorry that you have a squirrel. My first apartment in Cambridge had a squirrel and it was bad news: it ate through the bathroom celing tiles, chewed through all of the shampoo bottles (I was sharing with 2 other formere Brandeisians) *and* the toothpaste tubes, chewed holes in all of our towels and then made a nest out of them. Our crappy landlord did nothing (and we'd told her about the scratching for months before the thing finally ate through into the bathroom), and we ended up having to call Pest control on a Friday evening (after Shabbat started, no less) after 5pm, and pay a lot of money to have the thing removed.

As for removal (which is where this story can be applied to your situation), the Pest control guy had a trap which closed at both ends once the squirrel stepped on the trigger--a patch in the middle which was covered in peanut butter. The guy then said he would release the squirrel into the wilds of MA--somewhere on the North Shore, I believe. Either way, it was a good long haul away from Cambridge. The hope was that the squirrel would be too lost to return to the city, and, thus, would have to figure out how to live in the wilds again--without tasty shampoo and toothpaste to eat.

My suggestion, would be to release the thing as far from your home as possible--even if this means taking it out to a state park, or Six Flags, or something--oh, don't pay for the squirrel enterance fee for Six Flags, though. ;-) The farther it is from your home, the less of a chance it has to get back there.

I know it would just be easier if the thing could read--then you could post anti-squirrel signs and it might go away if it feels discriminated against...then again, it might just stage a protest. Hmmm...maybe it's a good thing they can't read....

He lied to you

[wargoddess.livejournal.com]

Once you call animal control for nuissance wildlife, the animal must be destroyed according to the guy who owns Critter Control next to my dad's yard. The wildlife laws prohibit the re-introduction of animals into the wild without specific permits which are ridiculously difficult to get and they're not going to bother for a squirrel. They tell you that so you won't feel bad or get mad at them.

>^,^

Re: He lied to you

[mitchellf.livejournal.com]

Man, that sucks. :-( Thanks for telling me, though.

I mean, the squirrel was annoying, and may have been a rabies carrier, or something, but I didn't want it dead--just out of my bathroom, you know?

Well, I guess I should tell Msmidge, since she was one of my roommates at the time and deserves to know the sad truth....

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

With the release, make sure it's at least several miles away from your home. I suggest New Hampshire.

[marquisedea.livejournal.com]

hey, just to let you know, my friend kelly has two Havahart traps and offered to let us use them.

[cheshyre]

We bought one last night. [It was only $20, and will probably come in handy again.]
We just have to bait it (I was figuring peanut butter, something squirrels would like but cats won't try to eat), set it up in your kitchen and wait for it to go off.

[marquisedea.livejournal.com]

sounds good! yes, i hear peanut butter is best.

[cheshyre]

Just let us know when we can set it up.
Frankly, once we catch the durned thing, I want to get a close look at it before releasing it (probably either near the pond in Stoneham or down by Pine Banks park). Boopsie always gets so excited whenever she notices squirrels out the window, I wonder what she'll do if she sees one up close. [No, I wouldn't let her actually *do* anything; I suspect her hunting instincts are dumb enough she probably wouldn't know what to do -- but it should be amusing and I want to see it.]

[ga-the-impaler.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I'm a little late in this thread, but my father is a squirrel lover. He's done many taste tests with the squirrels in his yard, and I can tell you, hands down, that if you want a squirrel to willingly walk into a trap, set out fresh peanuts, but crack the shells a little. If you can do this near the open window (cracking the shells, that is), all the better. You'd be amazed what the squirrels actually pay attention to. Peanuts are like heroin to them. They just can't get enough. As for peanut butter, it's okay. But just okay. They're actually picky about brand. Jif will send them packing. They hate it. Skippy is best, unless you can get fresh ground. Put peanut butter on a cracker. They actually like the crunch. Variety is the spice of life, after all. Still, fresh peanuts in the shell is the way to go.