I've had a stressful stretch.

[ausf]

After 18 years of home ownership and strict DYIing: floors, windows, bathrooms (including bathtubs), walls and even removing and installing a soil stack I finally had to breakdown and pay to watch someone do the work. I've been fighting a non stop squirrel war from day one here, but at last the ante was upped when 30 feet of fascia ripped off the house. I can't get on a ladder anymore (my knees are still hurting after changing a few shingles on a low roof two weeks ago) and even if I could, this was a huge job.

We also had an 85 foot Oak cut down that was starting to overhang. Once that came down, the squirrels were going nuts and things started to escalate even more. So bad I had to postpone the fascia replacement as I fought a weeklong battle, starting at day break each day.

So after a month of compromised sleep, $6,000 later and long Saturday afternoon of working on the furnace, I headed to the bench for a much needed deep breath: https://www.modelersalliance.com/forum/fettes-figure-forum/152422-wolf-man-s-wagon#280341

Of course last night around 4AM, there was a critter running around in the ceiling, but I'm sure it was just a mouse. Seems everything is trying to get in this year.

I never realized how much I could hate trees and animals, until I bought a house.

 

[Bagge]

:zen :zen :zen

I hope the nature soon will leave you in peace and search some other house to haunt!

Mats

 

[ausf]

Thanks Mats, hopefully they'll find it not worth the hassle.


I forgot to mention in that stretch, I had to drop another section of soffit to hunt down a leak. While standing on the roof, reaching over my head to inch down the soffit, I got a shower of bat guano. How did I know it was bat guano? because the little b*****d was just sitting there giving me a look. I prodded him with a crowbar and he just kept side stepping, but wouldn't leave. I didn't hang around because my main goal was to get in the shower and disinfect myself.

 

[jknaus]

:zen :zen :zen :zen :zen :zen :zen
While bats keep the bugs down be very careful because they do carry rabies. Dont get bit.
Hope things work out for you soon.
James

 

[iambrb]

Here in SC most of the battles in this yard revolve around fire ants, that have a colony under my concrete driveway, & I am having no luck ridding myself of them. the other is that every fall/summer, we have numerous snakes in the yard, as there is a creek about 150 ft from the back of the house. We found three feet (just hy of a meter) of snake skin in the yard earlier in the spring, and a day later my neighbor killed a 4.5ft. Copper head snake (member of the pit viper family, and posisonous) in his shed. I do not mind the the 5ft.+ banded King non-venemous snake I see on a regular basis but the posionous snakes in the back portion of the yard near the creek always give me the willies.

At dusk there are a really large number of bats, I had no idea they nested in trees/always sondered where they cam from!

 

[Sharkmouth]

I never realized how much I could hate trees and animals, until I bought a house.

Being 20 minutes away from me, you know I am aware of the battle! Luckily, the house was tented and fumigated prior to purchase and all tree limbs cut away so the only invasions I seem to be getting are ants (won that one) and now I see inch worms and moths...

Regards,

 

[moon puppy]

The house I grew up in was over 100 years old and had like 5 chimneys so i thought it was normal to hear the pitter patter of little squirrel feets in the night.

I feel for you Jeff, I'm a DIY also but sometimes you just gotta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa1ez7yL_T4

 

[ausf]

The house I grew up in was over 100 years old and had like 5 chimneys so i thought it was normal to hear the pitter patter of little squirrel feets in the night.

I feel for you Jeff, I'm a DIY also but sometimes you just gotta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa1ez7yL_T4

This house was built in 1906, so every wall, floor or brick I opened had a ex-furry friend. I spent hours laying flat in dirt shoving mortar into a chimney crack with a 'bleedin' demised' squirrel inches from my face.

I don't mind watching the bats patrol the backyard, I just draw the line at showering me with pellets.

Like I've said, I've been dealing with them for 18 years with all methods, but when I was paying through the nose for aluminum wrapping and soffits, keeping them out got real this time.

 

[Hawkwrench]

Sorry to here about the nuisance battle ya got going on.
Me, I've got a mole that wants to just destroy our yard every fall. That's the only time he comes out it seems.
This year, we have a new visitor though. Seems we now have a ground hog who likes to come up in my yard and steal various things to take back to its den or just tears up stuff. (He or she just tore up our outdoor seat cushions that will cost us around $300 dollars to replace now.
I know they're animals, but man do I want to get a hold of them and strangle them to death!!!

Tim

 

[Heavens Eagle]

My dad had squirrels chew up the wiring in his boat so he got a pellet rifle and used to take them out whenever he saw them in the back yard. Had a boss (who has since passed) that had a nice house with a big pond beside it. About every 2 or 3 years a beaver would migrate up to it and start cutting trees down and tearing things up. He woild get his 22 and wait up in a 2nd story window and take it out. Brought one by work one time, it was huge!

Tree rats can be the worst though.

 

[ausf]

I went the pellet route for a couple of years, but moved onto to traps because they required less focus. Traps never sleep.

 

[moon puppy]

Yeah but you trap one, ten come looking where he went. Might I suggest an Owl?
We have 2 or 3 around our house, keeps the varmint population down to a minimum.

 

[ausf]

We have some nice hawks that live one block over and are usually riding the wind over the neighborhood. Now with Oak down, they've got a great view. A few times a year there will be dozens of them soaring around like they're reenacting the Battle of Britain.

We had a plastic Owl in the early years of the war, but he's gone.

Without Jinxing myself, now that the acorns are gone and I've eliminated most of the locals, I think things are under control, squirrel-wise. Every house on the block is over a hundred years old and at least half (we took ours down a few years back) have a barn in the back of the lot, so they can go that route.

Last night around 11 I was at the bench and heard some light scurrying from the vicinity of the soil stack, which is a clear chase to the basement. Plaster and lathe apparently makes a nice mouse ladder. Being that squirrels are diurnal, 11 PM is not their time and there's no openings in all the new wrapping and gutters. I'll be scattering some traps and bait in the space and let them sort it out. Right now there's one at the bottom of the basement stairs, glued solid into a trap. Which reminds me, I got to go take care of that guy...

 

[moon puppy]

I hate those things!! Glue traps. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

The Battle of Britain, maybe it was mating season...

 

[ausf]

As if on cue, while letting the dog out I just saw no less than 8 right over the tree tops. There's high winds right now, the clouds are flying by and it's 35 mph gusts at ground level, so they're having a blast.

I hear ya on the glue traps, but these buggers have been tripping the old style with only a few getting caught. I trapped myself more while setting them than critters caught, so I scatter the glue deals about and it's getting 'em.

The neighbor has an exterminator at their place all the time, I bet they're being chased out there and heading this way. Years ago, two houses up put expellers in his basement. And week or two later, my next door neighbor put them in his. A week after that, I was putting them in mine, so I guess the guy on the other side got some guests after me. They got to go somewhere.

 

[moon puppy]

Bring in feral cats then you have bunch of feral cats running around, if you go with a cobra you then will need a mongoose to keep the cobra in line. I feel for ya bro...

How about coyote, they are cool to look at till the neighbor's cat disappears, then the dog brings one home to meet the parents. :facepalm

 

[ausf]

The saga continues.

Last night at midnight, it sounded like a mosh pit in the hallway ceiling. After trying to figure out what the heck it was and what it was doing, I remembered I put some glue traps up there a few weeks ago. So I open the wall again and look inside and can't find the traps so I guess it was it. Noise continues, I open it again and there's the little sucker, trying to pretend he's not. Stuck solid to a trap. Looked like a mouse, dark fur, big eyes, etc but when I went to poke it, it took started bouncing around and I thought I caught a glimpse of a furry tail. Of course it's after midnight, I'm reaching in with a Maglight through a 2X3 foot panel in the sheetrock, past thick insulation so I can't attest to exactly what it was.

I looked up baby squirrels, chipmunks, mice, rats and flying squirrels (animal control says they are active here and nocturnal). It was too small for a squirrel, it was the size of the small trap, but was ark grey, not like any chipmunks that runs around here (they're brown with stripes so I'm thinking it's either a flying squirrel or mouse since mice can have hair on their tails. Rats not.

Either way, that space is going to be filled up with every rat and mouse bait I can find at Home Depot.

 

[iambrb]

This been a periodic problem for us since we bought our house in 2003, but when we cut down the four bradford pear trees out front (DON'T EVER put these trees in, BTW) a curious thing happened, not only did the little gray tree rats have nowhere to go, but now I have an owl that pretty much either sits on the edge of my house or my neighbors! he ans some of his buds are Barred owls, he is way bigger than he looks, and the silent flight really makes you duck when he goes over. He has figured out that we mean him no harm, but that does not mean that he is friendly.

Downside is that we went from like 5 hummingbirds to only two.

 

[jknaus]

Ahh man, the aliens were coming to give us either the big gun or peace and all they wanted was a glass of water. Now we're not going to get anything


Sorry had to be said Here's hoping you get the problem fixed for good.
James

 

[ausf]

Ahh man, the aliens were coming to give us either the big gun or peace and all they wanted was a glass of water. Now we're not going to get anything

Hahahaha.

Reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where the guy doomed Earth to destruction by grabbing the hand shaped alien by the head and shook.