Attic mystery

Here’s a little light reading for Thanksgiving week. True story. From the archives. And the attic. 

Todd arrived home late one night. After a long trip. When he opened the front door, the first thing he saw was me. Standing at the top of the stairs, on the second floor. Gripping a cricket bat with both hands. 

What? 

I silently pointed to the air vent in the ceiling. One little paw was reaching down, clawing at the air. I whacked the ceiling and it retreated. 

I had no idea what “it” was. But I wasn’t about to let it just waltz down into our home.

The trap

The next morning we ventured into the attic and found a hole gnawed through the wooden vents at one end of the roof. 

Squirrel! 

Todd patched the hole and acquired a trap cage. Then we waited. 

Attic antics

In the far end of the cage we positioned a blob of peanut butter to attract the squirrel. The first time we checked, the peanut butter was gone and the cage was closed. 

No squirrel. 

We tried again. More peanut butter. 

Same results. 

Imaginations run wild

Was this squirrel carefully stepping over the trip wire?  Or reaching through the side of the cage to swipe peanut butter, then happily grinning and licking it’s paw as it watched the cage snap shut?

Our imaginations were running wild.

We tried to make the peanut butter more difficult to get. Again, it was gone and the trapdoor was closed.

No squirrel. 

Caught

Maybe it was a critter that could crawl out through the cage holes. We bought fine mesh wire screen and wrapped it around the trap so that open places were closed.

The next morning, after weeks of trial and error, we opened the attic door to find a scrawny creature caught in the cage. 

Then we understood. It was a baby squirrel. A long and oh-so-thin baby squirrel. 

Attic survivors

The momma squirrel had looked for the perfect spot and found it in our attic. Then she went out hunting for nuts one day and returned to find her front door, so carefully gnawed open, now sealed and secured. 

I imagined the babies surviving on that dab of peanut butter and moisture from the sweat off a pipe somewhere. 

No wonder they were slipping through the square-inch holes of that cage. 

Catch and release

Eventually we caught five scrawny squirrels, one by one. Todd would take the cage in our car trunk to a forested area several miles from our home and release them into the wild.  

The adjustment from boxes and wood and wiring and pipes to trees and open sky must have set their little hearts a-flutter. 

Back to normal

Our home returned to normal with no more frequent trips to the attic. The trap cage with it’s special screen wrap was stored just in case of future squirrel invasions.   

And it was a long time before I stopped glancing up at that vent to check for little paws. 

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Thanksgiving