Ah, the wonders of nature in all its forms. People will say the suburbs contain only a limited variety of wildlife. There are, for instance, rabbits, deer, raccoons and teenagers. Now and then, I see something a little less common. Like the red fox that faced me down when I was jogging last week. Or the red-shouldered hawk that stood on my fence, eating a mourning dove. Just this morning, I drove past the middle school a few minutes before class was to begin, and there were cars pulling over everywhere and kids streaming across the grounds, all familiar sights at that time of day. But as I waited for traffic to move, I noticed a different creature scurrying across the street and over the lawn toward the building. It was an opossum. I hope it wasn’t late for first period.
I like seeing these creatures roaming the suburban habitat. But what would you do if a member of the local fauna took up residence in your attic?
First, it’s important to know your terminology. The opossum, for instance, is what is called a “varmint” in the parlance… This, to differentiate it from a “rodent.” To confuse matters, rabbits, raccoons, and squirrels are “varmints” even though some of these are, in actuality, rodents. Pest control companies that might be willing to deal with rodents do not generally handle varmints. This may, someday, be useful information for you. But I hope not.
I was made aware of the distinction a few years ago in unfortunate circumstances. There had been some, shall we say, “rodent sightings” in our area, which culminated in my chasing a rat across the front lawn, while waving a large shovel. As a result, when I subsequently heard noises coming from our attic in the middle of the night, I wondered if it was the pitter-patter of extremely unwelcome little feet. (Not that this made any sense. Rats don’t generally live in attics where there’s no food or water source. But I was not in my right mind; I’m now convinced…)
While lying in bed, I heard a loud thump, followed by a tapping sound in the corner of the ceiling, then silence, then a moment or two later, another thump and tapping coming from clear across the room. I might have been able to ignore this situation until there was some dire consequence, except that it kept happening at around 2 a.m., and it was waking me up night after night.
After several days of this, I called a local “expert” who suggested I do a test to try to figure out what was making the sound. Why didn’t I call the pest control company? I suppose the best explanation is that first I wanted to know what it was. So, my Expert told me to go into the attic and put down a piece of cardboard with peanut butter in the middle of it for bait. In a circle around the peanut butter, he said I should sprinkle cornstarch or baby powder. The creature would leave tracks in the powder, and from the tracks I could identify varmint…or rodent…
My attic is unfinished. There is no electricity, and the only light comes from the roof vent. There is no floor, so in order to walk around I have to step carefully from joist to joist. If I make a wrong move, I could end up falling through the garage ceiling, which actually happened to someone I know—to my dad, in fact. A fine potential family tradition I would like to avoid.
I carried a halogen flashlight and wore a mask, so as not to inhale the exposed insulation fibers, while balancing nimbly on 2×4’s. Why didn’t I just call someone to do this for me? I can only say that I was dazed from lack of sleep. At any rate, I eventually succeeded in positioning the cardboard, peanut butter and powder near where I’d heard the sounds.
The next day I returned to my testing ground. As predicted, there were footprints. I estimated their size and called my Expert. Unfortunately, my description was inconclusive. He said it could be a rodent (!!)…or it could possibly be a varmint. A major difference between rodents and varmints is that rodents actively want to be inside your house. It’s warm there, they like your cooking, and they’re less picky than anyone who’s coming for Thanksgiving. Varmints, on the other hand, are only interested in a nesting place. They don’t particularly want your food, and they really don’t want to be around you at all. Grey squirrels, for instance, can take up residence in an attic for warmth. Once there, they do a lot of damage, chewing wires and tearing up insulation.
“Do you want to set a trap?” my Expert asked.
Did I want to try and kill something? Almost all the time, my answer to that will be “no.” Sure, it’s true that I have the urge to kill something several times a day. But the difference between me, and the person who goes on an actual murderous rampage is, well, it’s…(give me a minute…)
I especially did not like the idea of killing something when I wasn’t 100 percent sure of what it was. I will kill mosquitoes and flies without compunction. I will squish ants with my fingers (and that’s another column…). However, I still have disturbing flashbacks to the time I killed what I thought was a wasp that was menacing my then-toddler. The “wasp” landed in the diaper bag, where I crushed it to death in a fit of maternal over-protectiveness. It turned out to be a dragonfly. I killed a dragonfly. I will never forget its startled eyes. Yes, a bug’s eyes can look startled.
So, did I really want to kill the unidentified attic trespasser? No.
But did I want to get a good night’s sleep? Yes.
Sleep ultimately won.
I set a trap baited with peanut butter. In the middle of the night, I heard it snap.
The next morning after the kids left for school, I ventured back into the attic—this time with gloves and a thick plastic bag. When I say there is more variety in suburban wildlife than some people realize, I am thinking about this animal that made the fateful decision to nest in my attic that winter. I had killed something all right; there it was in the trap. But it was not what I expected. It was the dragonfly all over again.
I killed Rocky the Flying Squirrel.
After the fact, of course, it was easy to figure out. The traffic pattern, for one thing, was a dead giveaway. The squirrel would get a running start, then glide through the air the length of the attic, land with a bump on the other side, run some more and repeat that activity, so that it sounded like a giant game of volleyball was being played above my head. The flying squirrel is smaller than its cousin, the grey squirrel. And, unlike other squirrels, the flying squirrel is nocturnal, hence its late-night hijinks.
And its huge, adorable eyes.
Luckily, in the relative darkness of the attic, I was able to bag my kill without looking it full in the eye. I reported back to my so-called “expert.”
“Oops,” he said. He told me it was time to call a Real Expert…in case there was more than one flying squirrel.
The Real Expert showed up at our house with a box trap designed to capture but not injure or kill an animal (also known as a Havahart Trap). He managed to place it in our attic without falling through the garage ceiling. (So far, we are not repeating history.) I couldn’t help thinking about how well-adapted the flying squirrel is to navigating my attic space, compared with the humans for whom it was supposedly built.
At 2 a.m., there was a bang and a rattle. The banging and rattling continued for two hours. I finally decided that “call me in the morning if there’s something in the trap” could mean four in the morning. The Real Expert returned, amiably enough, shortly before sunrise, and our second uninvited houseguest was evicted. When the cage was carried downstairs, the squirrel was jumping around inside like an acrobat on speed. Face to face with me, the squirrel stopped, clung to one wall of the cage, and stared intently into my eyes. I am not anthropomorphizing when I say its look was starkly accusing. Okay, so I am anthropomorphizing…
I was told Rocky II would be taken far away to the countryside and set free. I followed the flying squirrel and its captor outside. In the back of the contractor’s pick-up, there were a number of other animals that had been trapped at other houses. All were headed for the “countryside.” I hoped that it wasn’t a euphemism. I noticed one of them looked very much like a rat.
“Is that a rat?” I asked.
“Yes,” the Real Expert told me.
“You live-trapped a rat?”
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t kill anything.”
Unlike me, I thought.
Nowadays, when I hear something unusual in the attic, I turn over and go back to sleep. I’m sure it’s just a branch scraping on the roof.
For more from Paula Whyman, see www.paulawhyman.com and her online parody newspaper www.bethesdaworldnews.com.
