Pesky Pigeons

Having pigeons on your roof is a hassle no doubt about it, but I thought getting rid of them would have happened a completely different way. Pigeons have always been a problem in Utah (surprise! I’m not from NYC) which you wouldn’t think of as a problem animal here but it is. I’m the landlord for an apartment building here in Sandy and I have more complaints about pigeons than I do about wolf spiders! Well finally I decided I had to do something more because the bird spikes didn’t seem to be affecting the pigeon population at all! So I took to the internet to find help.
I typed ‘Pigeon problems in UT’ into the search bar and the second thing to pop up was AllstateAnimalControl.com and, after confirming the job, I was contacted by a technician. I told him about the pigeons on the roof and all the troubles they caused and I must have gotten excited because I do recall saying something along the lines of “You can shoot them for all I care!” Well my 13 year old son must have heard that because he took it very literally. I received more calls that day than any other and I couldn’t believe what they were calling about.
A month earlier my husband took Josh to get his hunting license, last week they went dove shooting and I heard Josh was quite the shot. It turns out that he was just as good as he said he was. After hearing my comment about the pigeons, he decided that he would take care of the pigeons on the roof himself and save me money (or at least I hope that’s what he was thinking). Do you see where this is going? He and his best friend took their small .22 caliber rifles across the street to a gas station, and proceeded to pick off every pigeon one by one. Well they only got through about 12 before I got a call from both the cops and just about every tenant in the building telling me what was going on. Oh I was livid! Not only did I have to pay a fine for them shooting a gun in public, but I still had to pay to get the pigeons off the roof! My advice is this: if you have pigeon problems, don’t let your son hear about it!

Skunked

Having a skunk under your house is a nightmare! And not one of the ones where you feel uncomfortable but you don’t really know what’s happening and you wake up easily; no it’s a nightmare that overloads all of your senses, sight, touch, sound, SMELL, and it’s one where even when you pinch yourself, you don’t wake up. If you do happen to wake up, you don’t find relief, or at least that’s what happened to us. Living on a farm in Wyoming, I know that there are skunks around and I’ve seen one wandering here and again, but golly this was a different experience. I was literally asleep having a nightmare about a fight and there was scratching and growling and then there was green fog and an awful smell, and when I woke up two of those things remained: and it wasn’t the green smoke.
Well luckily my husband Neil has a friend who does things like this for a living. We wouldn’t get any sort of discount, but it was nice that we knew him and could trust him to do the job right. He came and did an inspection while we moved out to the guest house until the smell (and hopefully the skunk) was gone. He came back to us with bad new, it wasn’t just ONE skunk under our house, but a whole family! The good news was that he could get them out. He set up a trap outside the whole that wouldn’t let the animal get back underneath the house once it left. That worked great for parents, but the babies were trickier. Since they were on the edge of the house though, he made a small pen outside the trap so when the little ones came out they were ours for the removing.
I have never been so thankful for someone in my life. Not only did he get rid of the skunks, but he recommended and taught us how to use an odor control to get rid of the awful skunk smell. Having your nightmares become a reality is never a good experience, but with how smoothly everything was taken care of it was hardly a bother. Plus, staying somewhere other than our house was like a mini vacation! Overall I’m just so happy that we were able to take care of the problem before it became a PROBLEM and that there are no longer skunks under my house.

“Come on Robin, to the Bat Cave!”

To say I have a ‘little’ bat problem, is a BIG understatement. We bought a new house in June completely expecting it to be run down and have issues, we specifically like this property because it other buildings around it that we could use or tear down. We were ready for work and prepared for rickety, but we never thought we were buying the bat cave! After the final signings and the house becoming officially ours, it took us about a month to get out to it to see exactly what we bought (we didn’t check before because we planned on rebuilding anyway). When we got there, we realized we took on what could be an impossible fight.
The property had a bat problem like I have never seen in my life, the floors in ALL of the buildings are littered with guano and what I thought was black paint on the ceiling was really the oils from the bats covering everything! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, luckily there weren’t any bats there at the time, though I’m not sure where they went, but it was obvious they had been occupying the space. Well my wife and I agreed that while we did love to see wild bats, we did NOT want to live with them. We could deal with old wallpaper, cracked floors, and an assortment of broken things and maybe even holes in the roof, but we couldn’t deal with this bat problem on our own.
We called the insurance immediately and asked what they would be willing to help us with. They told us that there was nothing they could do unless a professional would come do an inspection. Well prior to this I didn’t know that there were people who specialized in bat problems like ours, but there’s someone to do everything I guess. We got in touch with a “trapper” who agreed to make the trip out to American Fork to help us out with our ‘little’ issue. Hopefully everything they find convinces the insurance that they need to help us with our BIG bat problem.

Santa Claws

It was right around Christmas time that we had a raccoon in our chimney, the reason I remember is because I was making a Christmas dinner for my in-laws who were coming to town the next day. I started the turkey that night before so the house had started to smell like Thanksgiving all over again, there is no better smell than turkey in the oven, and the raccoon must have agreed. I had been hearing a few strange sounds in the chimney here and there for a few days before the incident, but I was so stressed with the company that was coming that I just ignored it!
As I was getting ready for bed, I heard a metal creaking from the living room so I went to check it out, but there was nothing there so I shrugged it off and went to sleep. Later that night I woke up and heard movement and rustling downstairs, but I attributed it to the dog (that was lying next to the bed) and again went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning I couldn’t believe what I came downstairs to find. The raccoon in the chimney had opened the damper and went full Terminator on the house! The couches were shredded and torn, there was pee in more than one spot on the carpet, and the turkey had been taken out of the oven and picked clean! I wanted to cry but instead I got to work.
It was the first time that I had my in-laws at my house for any sort of dinner, so you can see why I was so stressed out. My brain was stuck on the tangent that if my house and food weren’t perfect that they would shame our marriage (don’t we all think that way?) so I called my best friend up and put her, her husband, and my husband to work in the fastest Extreme Home Makeover ever. We replaced the torn up furniture with new couches, shampooed the pee stained carpets, closed the damper and blocked the chimney, cleaned the house top to bottom getting rid of all the evidence of a raccoon, and bought steaks for dinner all before the in-laws arrived. After they had left, we got to dealing with the raccoon in the chimney.

Rat Pack

Two days ago, I caught a rat under my house. Last week I could hear sounds under the floor when I was in the basement and since I had troubles with mice a couple years back, I immediately assumed that they were back. I set out two of your regular snap traps and waited. I was totally caught off guard when I checked the traps to find one had a rat in it! The only experience I’ve ever had with rats was when I watched Ratatouille and this was NOTHING like that.
Since I’m so inexperienced with the new breed of rodent I was dealing with, I went out and did what any sane house owner would do and asked Google. The many people on the internet seemed to talk about a couple of common facts:
1. If there’s one rat, there’s usually going to be more
2. You have to take them out one rat at a time
3. Hire someone else to deal with it
Well since I am only interested in doing what’s best for me and will best take care of the rats under my house I’ve started researching what kind of company’s can deal with these things. That’s where I found your website.
I called Allstate Animal Control yesterday and gave them my story and information. I was contacted THIS MORNING by a ‘trapper’ that is coming to my house this afternoon. I was surprised that this entire scenario could be addressed so soon, but I guess when you call the best you get the best, or at least I hope. Hopefully they can get rid of the rats under my house as quickly as they got ahold of me!

Squirrel Problem

It took me a long time to admit that I had a squirrel problem. When I was young and in college I was an animal right’s activist, so I had a hard time accepting that it was really an issue and that an animal could be anything less than friendly. Back in the day I would have walked into a field of bears and expected them not to hurt me, but now (I hope) I’m a little bit more educated than that. I watched the squirrels jump from the tree onto my roof and crawl into the eve more than once, but what’s mine is theirs as my younger self would’ve said.
I think I was trying to reconnect with my past, liberal self when I ignored the scratching and other various sounds from the attic that would make their way to my ears. I don’t know what I was thinking when I waved off the horrible smell of urine and bought a new Glade air-freshener instead, but I do know what I was thinking when I opened the attic door and saw (and smelled) exactly what I had been letting happen in my house. The first thing that I thought was a little explicit, but the next was that I, Susanne Richards, had a squirrel problem.
When I called Allstate Animal Control about the issue, my inner teenager screamed ‘Human freedom, animal rights, one voice, one fight’ like I used to chant in college, but I pushed her down and continued with the process. Pretty soon I had a technician in my home setting up traps, then he was back a few days later to remove the squirrels and help me clean up the mess. After all was said and done, my inner activist was silent and pleased. No squirrels were hurt and my house didn’t smell like an outhouse. Allstate Animal Control fixed my squirrel problem, and saved my attic while they were at it!

Feline Frenzy

It had only been a month since we flipped the home before we found the cats in the basement. My husband Curt and I have been flipping homes for four years now and we’ve dealt with animals in the past, but this is crazy! We only finished the house just over a month ago and it went on the market about a week after that, and about two weeks ago, we found that someone had moved in without our knowledge. I was bringing in some stuff for the staging of the house when I sported about three cats crawling under the home into the basement!
When we renovated the house we must have accidentally broken one of the grids on a window downstairs because they had been hopping down into the window well and were crawling into the basement from there. Well we fixed that right up and thought it would solve the problem. WRONG. It turns out that most of the time, the cats weren’t in the basement, but under the house! There were only going in the basement once in a while to sleep, but were going under the house to do their business (if you know what I mean). Now the basement reeks of urine and feces and I can hear the mewing of what I think are kittens under the house.
Well after the embarrassment of confessing mine and my husband’s ignorance to the problem, we’ve been given two weeks to get the cats out of the basement (or out from under the house) before our potential buyers will put down a bid. If it takes longer than that we lose our buyers! I’m begging, I know where they’re getting in now and I’m not too worried about price. We just need a good natured contractor who won’t scare our buyers away but will get rid of the cats under the basement (the quicker the house sells the bigger the tip you’ll get!).

Flying Squirrel

There’s a squirrel loose in our house. I have absolutely no idea how he got in but he is currently trapped in the basement. I didn’t actually see the squirrel at first, my 86 year old mother did and it nearly gave her a heart attack (but only nearly). She grew up in Germany so when I heard her screaming ‘NACHZEHRER’ at the top of her lungs I passed it off as dementia or night frights, but she insisted that it was more. She told me that a ghost had flown over her head, broken the lamp she was reading by, and ran rampant into the kitchen. I told her she just made it up but the old verrückt wouldn’t give it up so I went to investigate.
As I walked into the kitchen I could feel her over my shoulder, whispering her quiet Hail Mary’s behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know she was probably clutching the small cross around her neck too, but I did turn around to get a full aerial view of the kitchen and try to spot the “ghost”. It was nowhere to be seen. I tried to convince her again that it was her imagination, but she cursed and told me to check the pantry. I rolled my eyes and obliged. Right after I pulled the door open further than it already was, a small furry tail sprinted from the shelves down the stairs to the basement.
While it wasn’t a spirit trying to eat us in our sleep, there was a squirrel in the house and Mama made sure I knew she was right. I’ve been calling different Animal Removal services for the past house, but most of the calls are ending with my mom yelling in her thick accent that we wouldn’t pay such ridiculous prices. I’m getting desperate, at this point I wish she’d had a heart attack! Then I’d have to pay for animal control AND a casket. Of course I’m kidding, but I really do need some help. I can barely live with my mother, I can’t have a squirrel in the house too.

Someone Save Me

I’m more than a dead skunk in a crawlspace, I have feelings too. I’m not sure how long I’ve been in this place, but it has to have been quite a while. I got sick a couple of months ago after a bad fight with a raccoon. I sprayed him but he definitely got off better than I did. I’m not sure if I died right after that or if I wandered around for a while before I found this place, my memory is a little hazy. I don’t remember a lot from before I died, but I remember my life, and everything after the fact.
At first I was in denial. I kept telling myself that I couldn’t have been that guy that when people ask what happened to him they say, “Oh, he died in a crawlspace.” That was my uncle, or at least we think it was but skunks all look the same. Then I was angry because cats and raccoons kept coming down near me because it’s warmer down here and I became a convenient snack when needed. After a while I didn’t mind as much, I mean I’m a dead skunk rotting in a crawlspace, I can’t exactly be picky with my company can I? Besides it was nice to know that not all of me went to waste.
Right now though, I’m tired. My body is almost gone, there’s only fur, some bones, my tail, and one foot left; the rest has been scavenged and just decomposed. I’m wary of the same old sight of gravel, wood, and the small peek of sunshine I get once in a while from the hole I used to get down here. I just want someone to come get me out. Dispose of my body somewhere and let me get to the “Rest in Peace” part of death. Being a dead in a crawlspace is nice and all, but I’d much prefer to be dead in heaven.