Squatting Squirrels

Brent: Squirrels are not velociraptors
Me: Oh REALLY? Because there's one in our roofline, one in the tree out front, I'm pretty sure a baby one in the hostas and squirrel prints in the concrete on our driveway!!!

The cedar siding of our house was initially a big selling feature but over time we've found some challenges with it. Because it is a natural wood and not plastic, it tends to attract local wildlife. A woodpecker decided to make a home in the eave just above Sydney's bedroom. I tried opening the window and using a pole to stop it. I played owl sounds to try and scare it away. All to no avail. That bird pecked a hole and set up shop. 

Eventually it left but then a pregnant squirrel discovered it and moved in. She had 3 babies who loved peaking out of the hole the woodpecker pecked. 

I made several calls to pest control companies who would ask for a picture and then conveniently not call me back. One friend gave me an ironclad reference and even they stopped returning calls. I get it, that nest is pretty darn high up there, but we couldn't let them just continue to eat into the house. What if they made it into the attic? Or worse, Sydney's room? She could hear them running back and forth above her bed. 

The damage to the house was going to be greater than the cost of repairing it if we didn't do something soon. Brent and I researched renting a lift which was pretty pricey. In the end, we decided to go with scaffolding that we could put together ourselves. Oh man, we had no idea how heavy and cumbersome that would be! Putting that together took a while and it was hard, dirty work. We nearly broke windows as we assembled the scaffolding higher and higher. 

Brent was able to get the corner edge of the ruined eave off pretty handily. The question was how to get a new one back on. Those squirrels had been nibbling and peeing and ruining the wood in there. We sent a picture to my brother-in-law, Doug. He kindly responded with this solution- expressing his wishes he could be here in person to help us out. My gosh I love that man!

I ran around to several hardware stores with the ruined piece of wood looking for a cedar piece to replace it. Meanwhile, Brent and Ireland cleaned out the nest and sprayed some animal deterrent (which could be a human deterrent as well. Nasty!). Around this time, Sydney was getting picked up for a playdate. It just so happens her friend's father works on scaffolding all the time. In no time flat he had it set up and stabilized so Brent could really get in there and do what needed to be done. He climbed around the scaffolding like Spiderman. This is when I finally returned with a replacement piece of cut cedar. Brent repaired it, patched it, and painted it while the mother squirrel squeaked angrily at him from the roofline. Sorry squirrel- you're being evicted.

The final coat of paint went on Sunday morning and we quickly took down the scaffolding and returned it before we hit our 24-hour rental limit. Tired but happy, we accomplished something even the professionals didn't want to touch! We unloaded the scaffolding a little wiser for the wear.