Gunfixr
02-20-2012, 05:03 AM
So I was messing around on the computer this morning, on here actually, and my wife's phone rings. It's her mom, she lives maybe 3 miles away.
So she's got some critter in the attic, it's been hanging out there for maybe a month, and she knows I got a friend in the pest control business and wants to know if we can come right over and "do something". She's afraid whatever it is will come down into the house and get her.
She's 80, and still lives in her own house, and takes care of herself.
Of course, with no warning on a Sunday morning, my friend is busy, he's out with his wife, who's rarely off on weekends.
So, I get dressed, get out my .22 revolver and a box of cb caps, gloves, my headlamp and a flashlight, kneepads, and a couple boards to span the rafters, and we head over there. Fortunately, she doesn't actually have anything stored up there, so whatever it is shouldn't be all that difficult to find. The cb caps won't go through really any wood, so as long as I don't aim down into the wallboard, or maybe straight up, all's good. My plan was to slowly work it into a corner, without pressing the issue, and pop it up against the multiple layers of 2x4s.
Well, the best laid plans ......................
All she has over there is a 6ft stepladder, which means I gotta climb in. I'm not much for ladders anyway, so I already don't much care for this, especially getting back out and down onto the ladder again.
The attic was a nightmare. There are lots of crossbeams going all over, with the heating system up there and running down the tallest middle section. I'm 6'4", so this means it's really tight up there. There was boards up there to climb onto as you leave the ladder, if you weigh in at about 150lbs, which is about 100lbs less than me. I almost fell back through right then. The noises she heard were above the "room addition" which had been added sometime after the house was built. So, to get to that part, you had to crawl up into and through a hole cut into the original roof where it met the addition. The hole was just barely big enough for that 150lb human, and then two vents were run through it.
So I get through, and I'm lightly tapping around on the insulation, hoping to scare him up. It's a good way to the corner, and I'm sitting in the only exit. I scared him up, alright. He was hiding about 4ft away, and he charged right at me as a brown blur that rocketed right out of the insulation. I got the revolver up and cocked right as he went by, right through the hole, and then I could hear him running down the house and out the end vent, where he had come in to begin with.
So much for driving him to a corner. It was just a squirrel, as opposed to a raccoon, of which some were about in the area.
No, I didn't try a shot at a squirrel running full tilt in a dark attic by headlamp. I'd certainly be bragging about that if I had done it.
He'll more than likely return, as my friend had advised that once they get in an attic and see how good it is, compared to an open nest in a tree, they stay. Closing the hole he came in will only make him chew a new one, so something will have to be done. Possibly, his close encounter with a human in his "own territory" will make him seek new digs, but I'm not holding my breath.
So, she has been instructed that should his noises return, let us know. I will shift to a more mundane method, as the nightmare maze of this attic, chasing critters does not appeal to me.
I'll put up a couple full blown rat traps, secured to the attic so he cannot drag them off to die in some corner under 12" of insulation, and me spend two days looking for the stinking corpse. They'll even be fairly near the ladder hole, why make it any harder than necessary? Apparently, as rodents, they share the same inability to ignore peanut butter as their lower dwelling cousins.
So, I spent half my Sunday afternoon squeezed into a tiny space trying not to fall through the "floor". Now my back and knees hurt.
We did see him outside after. He was on the next door neighbors tree, eating the corn she puts out for the tree rats. Since she feeds them, me shooting one right off the side of her tree, in the middle of the city, probably wouldn't go over too well. So I returned home to wash off the "itchies" and get the laundry done.
Thought someone might enjoy this little adventure, so here it is.
So she's got some critter in the attic, it's been hanging out there for maybe a month, and she knows I got a friend in the pest control business and wants to know if we can come right over and "do something". She's afraid whatever it is will come down into the house and get her.
She's 80, and still lives in her own house, and takes care of herself.
Of course, with no warning on a Sunday morning, my friend is busy, he's out with his wife, who's rarely off on weekends.
So, I get dressed, get out my .22 revolver and a box of cb caps, gloves, my headlamp and a flashlight, kneepads, and a couple boards to span the rafters, and we head over there. Fortunately, she doesn't actually have anything stored up there, so whatever it is shouldn't be all that difficult to find. The cb caps won't go through really any wood, so as long as I don't aim down into the wallboard, or maybe straight up, all's good. My plan was to slowly work it into a corner, without pressing the issue, and pop it up against the multiple layers of 2x4s.
Well, the best laid plans ......................
All she has over there is a 6ft stepladder, which means I gotta climb in. I'm not much for ladders anyway, so I already don't much care for this, especially getting back out and down onto the ladder again.
The attic was a nightmare. There are lots of crossbeams going all over, with the heating system up there and running down the tallest middle section. I'm 6'4", so this means it's really tight up there. There was boards up there to climb onto as you leave the ladder, if you weigh in at about 150lbs, which is about 100lbs less than me. I almost fell back through right then. The noises she heard were above the "room addition" which had been added sometime after the house was built. So, to get to that part, you had to crawl up into and through a hole cut into the original roof where it met the addition. The hole was just barely big enough for that 150lb human, and then two vents were run through it.
So I get through, and I'm lightly tapping around on the insulation, hoping to scare him up. It's a good way to the corner, and I'm sitting in the only exit. I scared him up, alright. He was hiding about 4ft away, and he charged right at me as a brown blur that rocketed right out of the insulation. I got the revolver up and cocked right as he went by, right through the hole, and then I could hear him running down the house and out the end vent, where he had come in to begin with.
So much for driving him to a corner. It was just a squirrel, as opposed to a raccoon, of which some were about in the area.
No, I didn't try a shot at a squirrel running full tilt in a dark attic by headlamp. I'd certainly be bragging about that if I had done it.
He'll more than likely return, as my friend had advised that once they get in an attic and see how good it is, compared to an open nest in a tree, they stay. Closing the hole he came in will only make him chew a new one, so something will have to be done. Possibly, his close encounter with a human in his "own territory" will make him seek new digs, but I'm not holding my breath.
So, she has been instructed that should his noises return, let us know. I will shift to a more mundane method, as the nightmare maze of this attic, chasing critters does not appeal to me.
I'll put up a couple full blown rat traps, secured to the attic so he cannot drag them off to die in some corner under 12" of insulation, and me spend two days looking for the stinking corpse. They'll even be fairly near the ladder hole, why make it any harder than necessary? Apparently, as rodents, they share the same inability to ignore peanut butter as their lower dwelling cousins.
So, I spent half my Sunday afternoon squeezed into a tiny space trying not to fall through the "floor". Now my back and knees hurt.
We did see him outside after. He was on the next door neighbors tree, eating the corn she puts out for the tree rats. Since she feeds them, me shooting one right off the side of her tree, in the middle of the city, probably wouldn't go over too well. So I returned home to wash off the "itchies" and get the laundry done.
Thought someone might enjoy this little adventure, so here it is.