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By Jackie, June 10, 2009

One of the joys of a home in the woods is the plethora of furry animals you can watch cavorting on your lawn, with and without their young, in the early Spring. They are very attractive until they decide to take up residence with you and your family, in your home.

I was less than thrilled when a squirrel decided to prepare the area directly behind my bed in our attic for a nest site last Spring. It was noisy and I was concerned by the possibility that I would lose electric service to my upstairs. Being grumpy due to lack of sleep, I banged on the wall and told it in some quite rude words that it needed to leave. The squirrel was seen to “fly” from the attic vent across the lawn, landing a bit unsteadily in the woods surrounding the lawn, and scurried off … I felt guilty and even checked to see if it was OK.

Plan A

A few days later, she was back! I borrowed a “hav-a-hart” trap and enticed her with chunky peanut butter into this fiendish contraption. This took a couple of days, probably because I used a store brand peanut butter – but I was thrilled to finally relocate her in a conservation area a couple of miles away.

Not having a head for heights (abject fear of anything over 3 rungs on a stepladder) I cut away the wall board from inside the room, and screwed in place a BarBQ grill over the inside of the vent. Large amounts of insulation had been wadded up and removed from a large area of the wall and I was patting myself on the back for not waiting any longer as I re-insulated and replaced the patch of wall board.

The war escalated this Spring! I had been very complacent about the vent at the other end of the attic being less accessible. As a consequence, a slat of the vent was promptly removed – no messing about this year – insulation was ripped about and seen wafting down onto the driveway, and a sun lounger on my deck looks like it exploded and the guts fell out!

A family of squirrels was born a few inches behind my pillow and could be heard squeaking at all hours of the night. I didnt have the heart to remove the mother by the Plan A method. Also, I didnt fancy dealing with orphaned squirrel babies in the attic. After a week or so of sleepless nights and sleeping on the couch I thought I had reached my limit…

Plan B

In the early hours of one morning, a raccoon was looking through my skylight! The next day, the squirrels were gone. Sad, but apparently nature really is cruel. The bad news was that raccoon babies make even more noise than squirrels!

There was no chance that this mother was fitting in the trap…I felt doomed.
Once the babies started moving about I scoured the internet for ideas. Moth balls were mentioned… Lavender moth balls do not work.

Plan C

I don’t know what comes higher up than a raccoon in the food chain but I am sure I don’t want them in my attic. Plan C was short, sweet and brilliantly effective. I softened their resolve with 12 hours of country music played full volume up against the wall…then just when they thought I was done, switched to talk radio.

This is the final cure for attic rodents : Loud, unrelenting talk radio.