The Great Squirrel Crisis of 04
Nov. 8th, 2004 09:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flummerySo, a good three hours ago, I looked up to see what my cat was freaking out about and thought to myself: "Oh. A squirrel. In my living room. DEAR LORD LET ME BE ASLEEP AND DREAMING AND FOR THIS TO NOT BE REALLY HAPPENING." But once again, deciding to take up religion in a time of crisis failed me utterly. You would think the gods have something against people who only yell for them during earthquakes and tidal waves and squirrel attacks, or whatever.
So the squirrel was squashed up against the corner of my wall, which is also my ceiling. I live in an attic, and the roof slopes down and... is also the wall. At the corner, where it meets the floor, it turns out there is a very small hole I never noticed before. But the squirrel could not make it back *through* the hole, and was desperately looking for an escape route from my cat, who was extremely taken aback by the fact that another living animal was in his space. For years now, he's guarded me against the Wall Monsters. Animals which patter over our roof, using it as a nocturnal highway, enraging him. He has paced and stared and assured me that if ever a critter DARED set foot where he could just get his paws on it, it would be critter history. But, in point of fact, the biggest prey he's had to practice upon are... the bees and wasps who make it in, and whose dissected bodies I usually discover when I step on them.
At any rate, faced with an actual *squirrel*, he was not quite sure what the hell to do, and I, perhaps unfairly, assumed that in a pitched battle, the squirrel would declare victory. The three of us, Cat, Squirrel, and Human, jointly panicked. I ran for the cat. The cat backed up. The squirrel ran back and forth with such force that he pulled up an entire 4 foot section of my carpet. I grabbed the cat, who didn't want to leave, and fled the premises, yelling for... well, for the other cat.
The other cat (there are two others, in fact, but I wanted just the one) is named Spike, and is a mighty hunter. He brings home 1-2 dead squirrels a week. Or rather, he gnaws off their heads and... brings us the bodies. So I figured he was just the cat for the job. I ran downstairs to find him. I opened the door and Cat the Third, Belle, spotted the opening, and took the opportunity to run upstairs. She did this because my floor is known to her as the Land of Free Food, since my cat has food out all the time, while her People only feed her twice a day. By the time I returned with Spike, my landlord was following behind, and I had no less than three cats and one squirrel on the premises, all of whom wanted one another dead.
So what followed next... was confusing and scary and loud and didn't go all that well. I had to lock two of the three cats in separate rooms. Spike (or, you know, William the Bloody) cornered the squirrel in the heating unit, hauled it out, and flung it the length of my living room. My landlord attempted to corner it, and then there was a period of thumping around and yelling and I lost my nerve and fled downstairs, and at the end of it... neither Spike or my landlord had any idea where the now injured, probably dying, baby squirrel had disappeared to. I was not happy. I sat on the sofa, attempting to eat dinner, nerves jangling, with my cat. I imagined him slinking around the corners. Or dying horribly in my heating duct. I felt terrible, because he was so small, and there was as a result, some guilt involved. My two borrowed cats had returned downstairs.
Being me, of course, I got back online to nervously relate the harrowing events to my so-called friends. One of my so-called friends is so-called![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merryish.
Merry's first response? To assume I was imagining the entire thing and ask me if I had actually laid eyes upon the squirrel. Her second response?
Thank you, lord
That's even better than Thing 2 hallucinating a squirrel.
Love, Merry
Her third response?
"Is he a flying squirrel? Because, having a flying squirrel in your turret has to be at least a little related to having bats in your belfry."
Yeah, I'm not sure why I hang out with her either.
After about 45 minutes, a rustling began, and my cat tracked the noise to my turret (I'm in an attic! I actually have a turret!) doing the mighty-hunter tracking thing. I ran back down for assistance. My landlord returned. We moved almost every piece of my furniture, and then... we spotted him. Panic-stricken, and panting, (all of us, squirrel and humans, by that point) we finally got a good look at him.
And yes. He was. A flying squirrel.
Of course he was. (And yes, I can hear Merry laughing from here).
My assumption that he was a baby came from the fact that he was so much smaller than what I'm used to seeing in a squirrel. And his eyes were... incredibly creepy, actually, given how large they were with respect to the rest of his head. I thought I was seeing a mutant squirrel before my landlord identified him. For those who wish to see what we did: A flying squirrel photo.
There was then a whole lot more running around. Somehow, the running resulted in the flying squirrel ending up in my hallway. We closed off the downstairs, the living room, the bathroom, and I locked myself in the bedroom, and listened to my landlord thump up and down the stairs for about 25 straight minutes saying things like "He'll be getting tired ANY MINUTE NOW." And then, he swore to me he had trapped the squirrel in a box. We carefully got more cardboard out, slid the box onto the cardboard, and ran downstairs, and outside, and... no squirrel. We ran back up. An empty hallway. I was horrified at the possibility that somehow, he'd gotten back into the living room, or worse, into my bedroom, and that not only were we back at square one, but more likely, I would be sleeping with the squirrels. But we restarted the search of the hallway, and finally, with aid from the flashlight, I spotted him curled up in the toe of one of my boots, and shivering. So we got some socks, stuffed them into the top, took the boot downstairs, and let him flee to the great outdoors.
I may never wear that boot again.
I keep hearing noises in the walls now, even though I know there's nothing there.
This has done nothing to help with my pre-existing squirrel phobia, brought about by accidentally picking up one of Spike's headless corpses, because it was dark out, and I thought it was one of Belle's stuffed toys.
Yeah.
So the squirrel was squashed up against the corner of my wall, which is also my ceiling. I live in an attic, and the roof slopes down and... is also the wall. At the corner, where it meets the floor, it turns out there is a very small hole I never noticed before. But the squirrel could not make it back *through* the hole, and was desperately looking for an escape route from my cat, who was extremely taken aback by the fact that another living animal was in his space. For years now, he's guarded me against the Wall Monsters. Animals which patter over our roof, using it as a nocturnal highway, enraging him. He has paced and stared and assured me that if ever a critter DARED set foot where he could just get his paws on it, it would be critter history. But, in point of fact, the biggest prey he's had to practice upon are... the bees and wasps who make it in, and whose dissected bodies I usually discover when I step on them.
At any rate, faced with an actual *squirrel*, he was not quite sure what the hell to do, and I, perhaps unfairly, assumed that in a pitched battle, the squirrel would declare victory. The three of us, Cat, Squirrel, and Human, jointly panicked. I ran for the cat. The cat backed up. The squirrel ran back and forth with such force that he pulled up an entire 4 foot section of my carpet. I grabbed the cat, who didn't want to leave, and fled the premises, yelling for... well, for the other cat.
The other cat (there are two others, in fact, but I wanted just the one) is named Spike, and is a mighty hunter. He brings home 1-2 dead squirrels a week. Or rather, he gnaws off their heads and... brings us the bodies. So I figured he was just the cat for the job. I ran downstairs to find him. I opened the door and Cat the Third, Belle, spotted the opening, and took the opportunity to run upstairs. She did this because my floor is known to her as the Land of Free Food, since my cat has food out all the time, while her People only feed her twice a day. By the time I returned with Spike, my landlord was following behind, and I had no less than three cats and one squirrel on the premises, all of whom wanted one another dead.
So what followed next... was confusing and scary and loud and didn't go all that well. I had to lock two of the three cats in separate rooms. Spike (or, you know, William the Bloody) cornered the squirrel in the heating unit, hauled it out, and flung it the length of my living room. My landlord attempted to corner it, and then there was a period of thumping around and yelling and I lost my nerve and fled downstairs, and at the end of it... neither Spike or my landlord had any idea where the now injured, probably dying, baby squirrel had disappeared to. I was not happy. I sat on the sofa, attempting to eat dinner, nerves jangling, with my cat. I imagined him slinking around the corners. Or dying horribly in my heating duct. I felt terrible, because he was so small, and there was as a result, some guilt involved. My two borrowed cats had returned downstairs.
Being me, of course, I got back online to nervously relate the harrowing events to my so-called friends. One of my so-called friends is so-called
merryish. Merry's first response? To assume I was imagining the entire thing and ask me if I had actually laid eyes upon the squirrel. Her second response?
Thank you, lord
That's even better than Thing 2 hallucinating a squirrel.
Love, Merry
Her third response?
"Is he a flying squirrel? Because, having a flying squirrel in your turret has to be at least a little related to having bats in your belfry."
Yeah, I'm not sure why I hang out with her either.
After about 45 minutes, a rustling began, and my cat tracked the noise to my turret (I'm in an attic! I actually have a turret!) doing the mighty-hunter tracking thing. I ran back down for assistance. My landlord returned. We moved almost every piece of my furniture, and then... we spotted him. Panic-stricken, and panting, (all of us, squirrel and humans, by that point) we finally got a good look at him.
And yes. He was. A flying squirrel.
Of course he was. (And yes, I can hear Merry laughing from here).
My assumption that he was a baby came from the fact that he was so much smaller than what I'm used to seeing in a squirrel. And his eyes were... incredibly creepy, actually, given how large they were with respect to the rest of his head. I thought I was seeing a mutant squirrel before my landlord identified him. For those who wish to see what we did: A flying squirrel photo.
There was then a whole lot more running around. Somehow, the running resulted in the flying squirrel ending up in my hallway. We closed off the downstairs, the living room, the bathroom, and I locked myself in the bedroom, and listened to my landlord thump up and down the stairs for about 25 straight minutes saying things like "He'll be getting tired ANY MINUTE NOW." And then, he swore to me he had trapped the squirrel in a box. We carefully got more cardboard out, slid the box onto the cardboard, and ran downstairs, and outside, and... no squirrel. We ran back up. An empty hallway. I was horrified at the possibility that somehow, he'd gotten back into the living room, or worse, into my bedroom, and that not only were we back at square one, but more likely, I would be sleeping with the squirrels. But we restarted the search of the hallway, and finally, with aid from the flashlight, I spotted him curled up in the toe of one of my boots, and shivering. So we got some socks, stuffed them into the top, took the boot downstairs, and let him flee to the great outdoors.
I may never wear that boot again.
I keep hearing noises in the walls now, even though I know there's nothing there.
This has done nothing to help with my pre-existing squirrel phobia, brought about by accidentally picking up one of Spike's headless corpses, because it was dark out, and I thought it was one of Belle's stuffed toys.
Yeah.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 12:24 pm (UTC)I *do not* understand why your first instinct was to kill the squirrel. A squirrel is a living thing, and has just as much right to exist as any other creature. The poor thing was already terrified because it had gotten in and couldn't find its way out. The best thing to do would've been to put on some oven mitts or thick gloves and grab the squirrel, or get it into a box, and take it outside. *Not* to let your cat corner and attack it.
I'm appalled that your cat kills 1-2 squirrels a week. Seriously. I don't understand how so many cat owners think it's cool to let their animals out to kill the creatures who actually *belong* there. I did wildlife rehab for a number of years, and it sickens me to remember the damage outdoor cats did to indigenous wildlife.
I'm sorry, I understand that you were freaked, but this is *so* not funny to me. In fact, I find it profoundly disturbing.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 01:14 pm (UTC)Riley is hers, and he's an inside cat who can barely keep her bug population down, so he's not much of a threat.
I understand and respect your compassion for the squirrel, and I know Seah's also glad the little thing survived to infiltrate another day. But I'm also sympathetic with her need to *not* live with a wild animal in her home, and her unwillingness to risk disease (specifically, the possibility of rabies) to capture it on her own.
Honestly, the only creature in that apartment less equipped to deal with a rampaging wild rodent than Riley, was Seah. I can't blame her for calling in the cavalry on this one.
Turning the whole thing, which was probably really hard to deal with, into a story she can laugh at (and others, too) is just Seah's particular way of handling stress - and also her particular talent.
You should hear the one about the lady in the cheese shop... *g*
no subject
Date: 2004-11-09 06:55 pm (UTC)I didn't realize Spike wasn't hers. I thought he'd been leaving her his kills, and most cats only do that for their own human. It's too bad that she has no control, because he's a menace. If he was a pit bull, going around killing neighborhood cats, or ripping the heads off pet rabbits, you'd bet someone other than the cats and bunnies would be screaming bloody murder. If that cat lived here, I'd call animal control.
But I'm also sympathetic with her need to *not* live with a wild animal in her home, and her unwillingness to risk disease (specifically, the possibility of rabies) to capture it on her own.
:shakes head: Okay, once and for all, squirrels do *not* carry rabies. Skunks, bats, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons and unvaccinated *cats* are possible sources, but not squirrels. Also, there are people who will gladly come to your home, humanely trap the animal, and release it elsewhere. Some wildlife rehabbers even handle that type of thing. I just think there are better options than siccing a cat on a defenseless squirrel which, I'm sorry, is just inhumane.
Turning the whole thing, which was probably really hard to deal with, into a story she can laugh at (and others, too) is just Seah's particular way of handling stress - and also her particular talent.
I absolutely *adore* Seah. *Adore* her. And I empathize, believe me. I know we all handle stress in different ways. I have a macabre sense of humor that a lot of people find off-putting, and very little bothers me in this way, really. I just *cannot* handle it when animals are neglected or abused, much less tortured and killed. I find it *incredibly* upsetting. That's why I can't work with animals anymore. And I really can't grasp how an animal being attacked and ripped to pieces can be seen as humorous. I've always thought of fox hunting as barbaric and inhumane, too. And I'm sorry, if that makes me a heinous bitch, well, so be it.
You should hear the one about the lady in the cheese shop... *g*
I'd much rather hear that one! :D