It’s oh-so-quiet in the loft this evening. This is a good sign; but they are cunning and deceptive, and we cannot assume the battle is over.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned in a Bexley-related post that I would be evicting some squirrels from my loft. At the time, I suspected that I might have a prolonged battle on my hands, and I was very, very right.
Some things that I now know about squirrels:
- they are not cute and amusing when you live in the same house as them
- electronic squirrel deterrents don’t really bother them all that much
- they have the capacity to turn you obsessive and slightly insane
- they will stop at nothing to return to ‘their’ territory, especially when they have left their babies there.
I have tried a fair range of anti-squirrel measures: some effective, and some not so.
Pest control was right out: this is always fatal to squirrels, and that’s not my bag (or my cage). It is their world as much as mine.
Cutting the top off a large fir tree, next to our house, was fairly effective. This did, however, seem to delay the babies in leaving the nest, since it was their escape route.
What didn’t work was stuffing the hole in our fascia board with chicken wire, and then putting an electronic “Dalek” device in the middle of it. This contraption was supposed to alert me to furry burglars, so that I could chase them off. As it happened, the little sods were already inside the fascia board when I stuffed the hole up, and they made a right old racket trying to get out. So, I had to remove the wire myself, losing the “Dalek” device in the process.
For the whole of the next week, we were woken at 6.15am by the sound of squirrel-in-fascia board (a kind of “scratta-scratta-scratta-scrat” noise) followed by several shouts of “Exterminate!”. Funny, but not at that time in the morning.
However, it now looks like all three babies have left the nest. I saw them in the leylandii tree down the bottom of the road yesterday, taunting a cat. They looked at me as if to say “There’s that potty-mouthed bloke from downstairs – got out on the wrong side of bed again, by the looks of things”.
So, if anyone wants any squirrel advice, I’m your man.
