My house is 110 years old, so I expected to deal with some "things" when I took it on. Crooked walls and windows, fragile plaster, a dirt crawlspace, uneven floors, and rag-tag electrical that needed to be brought up to code. I had what I'd like to think were reasonable expectations.
One thing I had NOT baked in my equation: squirrels.
Yeah, I know, squirrels are everywhere. And when you have an enormous willow oak over your backyard, you'll probably see a lot of them. Totally fair. But let me tell you where I wasn't expecting to see one: IN MY LIVING ROOM.
That's right. Tuesday I was upstairs working and I heard a noise downstairs. At first I thought that one of my Command Strips (velcro for hanging artwork without nails/holes) had broken loose and dropped a picture on the floor. But as I started down the stairs to investigate, I heard more noise. For an instant, I thought someone was trying to break into my house, and because I lean toward the "fight" instinct ready than the "flight" instinct, I went charging down the stairs at full tilt – only to arrive in my living room and see a terrified squirrel scrambling around the top half of my living room window, dashing itself against the glass in a bid to escape.
As soon as it saw me, it fell down the window and scrambled up into my fireplace, making it clear where it had arrived from. I took stock of the situation and decided that the best approach was to try to help it escape, so I opened the window it had been trying to use and removed the screen. (This was the most stressful part of the operation because I had two large spiders living between the glass and the screen, so I needed to relocate them without ending up with spiders in my house. I managed it, and then left the window open for the squirrel.
Instead of taking the invitation, however, the squirrel started scrambling around inside my fireplace. I assumed he had remembered how to climb and was reversing his way up the chimney, leaving from that direction. After a few minutes of upward-sound motion, it got quiet, so I assumed he escaped. To be sure, I decided to close off the fireplace. I broke down a cardboard box, taped it across the opening, then propped my cast iron fireplace tools against it for reinforcement.
I then took on the nasty task of cleaning up squirrel scat. Because that squirrel, in its panic to escape from my house, had absolutely shit its brains out. And then stomped in it. And tracked poopy paw prints from the fireplace to the window, across the windowsill, up both sides of the window frame and even on the glass. It was a literal shit-show.
I'm pretty picky about cleanliness, so it took a good hour to wash everything down and then disinfect it with Lysol. As soon as I was done, I called a chimney company and scheduled them to come out on Saturday to check all my chimneys and cap them to ensure this never happened again.
Except it did.
The very next day.
It was 4pm Wednesday and I was upstairs in my office on a video call with a client. Halfway through the call, I heard a noise downstairs. I tried to remain focused on my client, but I couldn't help but wonder: was the squirrel back?
I tried to reassure myself that what I was hearing was simply the tape releasing on the box as it had time to relax. But then I heard a little bit more. "Do you mind if I put you on a hold for a second?" I asked my client. "I have a situation I need to investigate."
I ran downstairs, and sure enough, the squirrel had punched the box loose and was halfway up my window again. Apparently it did NOT climb its way out the night before, but had instead been lurking in my fireplace, waiting for another escape attempt!
As soon as it saw me, it ran back up into the fireplace, just as it had the day before. I replaced the box, flipped my coffee table on its side and pushed it against the box to ensure that the squirrel wouldn't break loose again while I was on my call, and then I went back upstairs to finish my coaching session.
"Oh sorry about that," I explained. "As feared, I have a squirrel in my living room."
To her credit, my client took that in stride. Though it also makes me wonder if this seems like the type of person I am – the type who just regularly has a squirrel in her house?
As soon as the call ended, I called ASAP Critter Removal to see if they could send someone, and then headed back downstairs to try to remedy the situation myself. I decided to double-down on the idea of giving it an escape route, so I opened the window and lined up my coffee table (still on its side), a large box and a few other items to help "corral" the squirrel toward its preferred exit path. I then loosened the tape on the box covering the fireplace, and waited.
It felt like the squirrel and I were in a standoff, so I decided to recreate the prior conditions and go upstairs so it would have its space to come out, unthreatened. It was so hard sitting upstairs, listening for sounds of a squirrel. But finally, I heard what sounded like the scramble of a rodent. And then I definitely heard the sound of a squirrel trying desperately to get itself up the window.
Curious to know what was happening, but not wanting to scare the thing back up into the fireplace, I gingerly made my way down two stairs, where I could sit and observe without interfering. What I saw confirmed that squirrels are not very smart. The squirrel was, in fact, trying to go out the window. But instead of running out the open part at the bottom, it had again scaled the entire window and was throwing itself madly at the top half of the glass.
Channeling all the patience of a fisherman, who knows that waiting is the game, I stayed on the stairs, watching. Finally, my patience paid off. The squirrel lost its grip and with a cartoonishly squeaky sound, slid down the pane, landing on the windowsill, where it finally noticed it could escape. It sat there for a beat too long, apparently trying to decide if it could make the jump, so that's when I lost my patience and came charging down the stairs, scaring it through the window and out onto the sidewalk.
And wouldn't you know, that squirrel sat there chirping and scolding me for at least minute, as if I had some how wronged it, not saved it? The nerve.
I quickly closed the window, initiated my cleaning protocols for the second day in a row (this squirrel might not have eaten for 24 hours, but it still had plenty of excrement to handle), and then – just to be safe – re-barricaded the fireplace, this time with a large, tight-fitting screen and a table.
About this time, I got a text back from ASAP Critter Removal, telling me they could have someone out to me in 45 minutes.
"I think I just handled it," I wrote back.
"Do you want us to come out and check your chimneys for you? We could do Friday at 5pm?"
I explained that I already had a chimney company coming out on Saturday, and that I was hosting a dinner on Friday night.
Their sign-off/advice, "Cool. Sounds fun. Go nuts!"
That cracked me up, but it's likely I'm just slap-happy since this is the third time in two weeks I've had an animal hanging in my window, crapping itself. Good times. Or as they apparently say in Richmond, "Go nuts!"
