31 July, 2016

The Revenge of the Flying Squirrels

820
July 31, 2016

R. Linda:

Living in a rural place, brings with it the stunning joy of watching eagles soar, hearing hooting owls at night, watching turkeys cavort in the driveway, deer bound through the fields, and bunnies eating all that lettuce your wife planted right when it was ready for your table. Yes, with the pleasant things come the unpleasant. Bunnies can be fixed by getting fencing they can't hop over or dig under, but there are the unpleasant critters called flying squirrels that are a true menace.

Bunny Heaven OR, better known as THE GARDEN that I broke me back on for the wife

What is a flying squirrel? It is a smaller version of its big grey brother, but unlike the big version, this one has its own flying suit. It has a membrane that when it jumps like a skydiver, the flight suit spreads out while it glides to (in this case) my roof. And it isn't just one, but dozens, R. Linda, dozens and dozens of them. They chatter at you with more impassioned enthusiasm than their grey brothers, they let you know in squirrelese, that the roof and attic belong to them, and they don't care you have a deed that shows otherwise. Uh-huh, they will even charge you if you put up a shaking fist out the window to try and scare them. The only one who gets scared is YOU!

This is me nemesis AKA flying possum, AKA Pteromyini AKA MENACE

One was in our living area when we first moved in. Tonya said, "Oh that is an odd-looking creature, it's kind of cute." Then she went screaming for me "Get it out of here, I don't know what it is!" And I did shoo it with a broom out the door where it jumped off the deck to the ground below. I thought at the time there was something strange about how it sort of drifted to the ground, no hard fall from a high place. After that we didn't think of it at all until . . . one night we heard scurrying above us, we heard scratching and such a ruckus I went up to the attic, but nothing did I see.

The next morning it dawned on the wife a conversation we had at closing. We were told by the home inspector that there was evidence the house we were purchasing had bats at one time. But at the closing the former owner told us "By the way, I think we got rid of the flying squirrels. We used good old-fashioned sticky paper to trap them." No one in the room asked how they disposed of said trapped vermin or asked when this had happened and why weren't we told? We should have because THEY ARE BACK! After that night and morning of realising what must be keeping us awake, I called Pest Control. Well, here's the thing they don't kill these things, they find where they come in and put in a one-way door. So out they go at night to feed, and surprise, surprise, they can't get back in! Do you think that's a good idea? It sounds so until you are awakened at dawn with a hundred of them clawing at your roof tiles and eating the soffit to get back in. And mad? OMG, they will charge your window (thank God we had screens up) and latch on chattering at you. We had to close our windows for fear they'd rip the screening to shreds. This continued for one week straight, day and night of chattering squirrels on the roof, jumping to the trees and back and forth, back and forth. Finally, they gave up, pest control came back, removed the doors and sealed the cracks. We were pest-free for one month until they found they could run down the gutters and chew over the storm drains and inside once again. I tell ya! Pest Control out again, same thing, only all this activity has attracted bats!

If I could get a good picture at twilight of the bats circling the roof I would put it in here. It looks like we live in Dracula's castle. I was ok with the bats, they eat bugs but when O'Hare discovered one curled up asleep in his sink, I called Pest Control AGAIN. Same thing, one-way doors, swooping angry bats so much so we did not venture out at twilight.

So where am I going with this, hold on the roller coaster is only just starting to roll.

I have two cats that come in at night. We put them in the cellar. These two hunt all day and the tiger cat is quite successful with mice, chipmunks, birds, and SQUIRRELS, only not the flying kind the big grays. Oi!
Our two hunters

The other of them be a slightly bit stupider, but a hunter he tries to be. The tiger likes nothing more than biting off something's head and leaving the body. How do I know this? Me youngest came in and informed us at dinner, "Tiger iz eatin' someone." Well, the word someone had me up and outside. Yes, indeed, eating a chipmunk's brains. Lovely timing, but at least it wasn't "someone" I knew.

To show how the other one operates, here is a short video and it is a video even though NO ONE is moving at first. Mam wanted two sheep to remind her of home, I wasn't about to invest in the real thing, so for her birthday Tonya and I got her two resin sheep so she could look out her window and see them. Anyway, the video shows stupidity in the animal world at its highest.


Meanwhile, a month had passed and we were doing quite a bit good on the pest side. Yes, life was idyllic and good UNTIL Mam went down the cellar to get a couple of pictures of Ireland she wanted to hang in her sitting room. Now Mam has a cat of her own, Princess (so aptly named) because THIS thing fulfils no purpose in the house but be a spoiled prima donna that does nothing really but eats and shits. But it be me Mam's cat so it is in that room being pampered where it is very pleased with itself.

But now the pedestal has fallen and "Princess" has been introduced (as have we all) to the world of outside pests brought inside to reign havoc by those low-life outdoor cats. Yes, the darling of the inside world be sporting fleas! How did this happen? Well, the vicious cycle has begun, or as Mam puts it, the revenge of the flying squirrels.

Seems when she went to the cellar for those precious pictures, she stepped on something hard. She looked down and saw a "deed chip-mook!" Only it wasn't a chippy it was a dead flying squirrel. We suspect Tiger got the thing and while the cellar door was open brought it in to do short work of. Only for some reason, instead of biting its head off, he left it. IT had been down there for a long, long time.    Rigour mortise had set in long ago and so did the fleas. So when she saw what she stepped on she flew up to her sitting room, where catching her breath, she looked down to see the calves of her jeans were covered in FLEAS! At first, she thought fruit flies, oh if only. The poor dear danced around and I be sure Princess all interested in what was wrong with 'mother' came to investigate and well, you can guess the rest, and no those weren't fruit flies.

I called pest service AGAIN! We had to scour the house top to bottom, wash EVERYTHING and get all animals inside de-flead. That included the dog, Princess, the two culprits that brought the thing in and basically all of us itching people who reside in the abode spending six hours outside while we waited for the insecticide to do its thing. Then we had to go back inside, and clean everything again, which we had to do every day for TWO FECKING WEEKS! The worst is who wants to vacuum the basement. NO ONE, so Tonya has been donning a hazmat suit, and reluctantly cleaning the cellar complaining that she, "hates, hates, hates, THIS."

Gabe
Copyright © 2016 All rights reserved

12 comments:

mobit22 said...

LMAO boy when you have a story, it's a doozy! You never get just one pest , YOU GET THE WHOLE COUNTRYSIDE! You should have a special on animal planet! LMAO

mobit22 said...

Oh yeah, sorry if I don't sound sympathetic but we're dealing with moths, big ugly beetles and our trio of black cats bringing us gifts of dead mice.

Gabriel O'Sullivan said...

I should be getting discounts from pest service for keeping them in business.

Gabriel O'Sullivan said...

I will share me big box of Kleenex with you.

mobit22 said...

Thanks! I do need them. LOL I'm tired of picking up little dead mousies. Worse is when they play catch and release, tje baby mice HOP

Fionnula said...

ughhhhhhhhhhhh fleassssssss yuckkkkkkkkk

Anonymous said...

I don't know which is worse, animals bringing food to you or animals stealing your food and laughing about it after. 'Tis a lovely story Gabe, not exactly one I wanted to read before bed. Thank you for that.

Tomas said...

I see where you got story number 2. As to this one, O-M-G how do you ever get rid of fleas? An adult lives about 3 MONTHS, the eggs (can be in the hundreds) hatch in 12 days, the larvae stage is 4 to 18 days and it seems to never stop? Unlucky Irishman!

Gabriel O'Sullivan said...

That's helpful thanks for the reminder.

Dew said...

I'm itching reading this. Lol

Gabriel O'Sullivan said...

Go on with yourself you're loving this LOL

Dew said...

No! I'm hating anything to do with rodents and fleas! And a cat eating the heads off. Well it is nightmare stuff as Lucky suggested. I'm still bloody itching.