Can We Talk 2

Squirrel Phobia

         I've been reminiscing about my encounters with squirrels. I do not like them. They are tree rats. They are destructive, and they steal. They have made me fear for the safety of small children and pets.

         Once my husband and I got home from work before dark. We saw our Christmas lights cut up in small pieces along the railing on the deck, and assumed it was the local teenagers in our subdivision. We were about to call the police. Before going in the front door, we walked around the deck and noticed short pieces of wire on the floor in front of the sliding glass door. I looked up and noticed wire hanging down from the staples around the edge of the A-frame, too tall for the kids without an extension ladder. My mouth fell open, my husband looked up and we both realized it about the same time. Squirrels!

         After that, they started eating the cedar siding. They ruined the corners of the house. Eventually, they gnawed through the wooden door of the attached shed and made a nest in there. By then I had moved out, so they drove my soon-to-be ex crazy with their noise. He thought the house was haunted, until I caught them red-handed slipping through the door. (They can go flat as pancakes.) He was sick, and I was there to make sure he wasn't dying. I heard the noise, and it was like he described it. But I went outdoors and tried to figure it out.

         In the middle of these experiences, we had a thistle seed feeder. He had gotten a long wire and used a ladder to string it from a tree branch. It would be too difficult for a squirrel to get it. The perches were tiny, the holes for the seed were tiny. We came home from work to find the feeder down on the ground, part of it at the top of the hill--I parked on the upper side of the circular driveway--and part on the lower end. The seed was gone. The plastic feeder looked like it had been through a grinder. We finally calculated that they had jumped repeatedly onto it until it freed itself from the wire. The feeder wouldn't hold them in the air. Once on the ground they clawed it to pieces. After that I was afraid to leave the dog in the yard unattended. They might have picked her up and carried her off.

         So now I live in a different county. Thankfully the house doesn't have cedar siding. The squirrels haven't moved into the shed (maybe because it's free standing). But they eat the bird seed. It's a daily duty to run them off. The neighbors have probably heard me calling them names and shaking my fists or a broom at them. I do not like squirrels.