All Squirrels Must Die!

Subject: My encounters with squirrels in the chimney

It was a cold winter day when I heard the noises in my chimney.  The damn squirrels had been using my roof as a shortcut between the large pine at one corner of the house and the large oak at the other.  They’d actually wake me up in the early morning as they’d jump onto the roof and scamper across.  You wouldn’t think the little bastards (LB) would make that much noise as they hit the roof.

Anyway, I was working on the couch and figured they’d climbed down and started nesting in the chimney for the warmth.  Warmth they wanted, eh?  I’ll give ‘em warmth.  When the three-log fire was blazing in the fireplace, the noise became louder and much more frequent.  I began to wonder why the LB hadn’t climbed back out.  That’s when it dawned on me that the LB hadn’t climbed down, it had fallen and was now trapped on top of the firebox.

Fortunately, I’ve got latching steel doors with screens on the front of the fireplace.  After a while, the LB saw the daylight into the living room through the open flue and that’s when it made its fatal mistake.  It’s a fairly large fireplace, so it was able to run around the blazing logs a few times after jumping down to try to find a way out.  Three or four laps later, it collapsed and died.  I sent an email to coworkers saying it looked like I’d be having squirrel for lunch.

Many berated me for not letting him out, if you can believe that.  I told them there was no way I was going to have a flaming squirrel running around my house!

Fast-forward to spring.  I’ve called my chimney guy to put mesh around the top so I could avoid similar experiences.  Squirrels roasted on an open fire really isn’t my cup of tea.  Well, he gets up there and finds they’ve built a nest at the top of the chimney and there’s four demon spawn (DS) in the nest.  He asked if I had some kind of box to put them in.  I told him to “just throw them down”.  Well he’s all tree-hugger/animal lover and says he can’t do that.  So I grudgingly got him a shoe box.  He puts the DS in the box, does his thing with the chimney, and comes down off the roof.  He places the box on the ground and says the mother will get them and rebuild elsewhere.  I’m thinking, “Like hell, she will.”  As soon as he was out of the driveway, that box made its way down to the river where the contents were promptly emptied.  Fish gotta eat, too, you know.

For the next couple of days, there was an awful lot of activity on the roof as the LBs looked for their DS.  At one point, one of the LBs was on the skylight, looking through the window, chattering away.  Even when I rushed the window menacingly and put my face to the glass so it was the only thing separating us, it did not budge — giving me the evil eye.  That was surely one upset rodent.  Now everyone jokes about them having a contract out on me.  I do try to stay aware as I move around the neighborhood….

Singed… I mean Signed,

— SquirrelsAreRatsWithGoodPR in Mass.