I don’t know if you’ve ever smelled a dead rat, but it’s not pleasant that’s for sure. It was roughly a year ago when my wife Justine and I discovered that our new house (of only three months) had a rat problem; no wonder it sold so easily. It took us a while to realize that our moving boxes hadn’t had holes in them when we moved, and all of our food was intact when it was packed away. The hard part wasn’t getting rid of the rats, but convincing Justine that traps and poison were the way to go. As an animal lover she was hesitant to bring harm to any creature, she wouldn’t even swat flies in the house! At first we tried to just block off any place we were suspicious that they could get in, but then we discovered that the rats had chewed holes in our couch, the one Justine’s grandma left to her when she died. After that there was no mercy for any vermin in the Nielsen home! We set out traps in hopes to catch all the rats red handed.
My master plan didn’t settle well with my wife, and when she found a dead rat under her desk, twisted grotesquely in a trap, she called for a cease fire and told me she would not let me set anymore traps, she couldn’t stand the sight of the poor, dead rodents. I was a little aggravated at this change in my strategies, but they changed nonetheless. I know who makes the rules in my house. As they say in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, “A man may be the head of the house, but a woman is the neck and she can turn the head any way she pleases,” so I set out poison instead, that way none of the rats would die in the house, but in their nests instead. Wherever they may be.
Awkwardly for us, the nest turned out to be underneath the house, and as I said before, the smell of dead rat isn’t an enjoyable one. What was worse was that our cat, Minny, LOVED to catch mice (I know we should have just let her go for the rats but I was ready for war!) and these were bigger, faster, more challenging, and apparently more appeasing. She chased and caught maybe two or three or more of the already poisoned rats, and got VERY sick. Now, not only did we have to live with the smell of the dead rats, but also with the smell and sound of an ill pussycat, none of which I’d like to experience again. We were in and out of the vet’s office for a month, not to mention I had to crawl under the house to clear out the rotting animals. This took a lot longer than I thought it would just for a couple of dead rats.
Skunk in the Roof
There is a skunk in my roof. Now, if you’ve ever smelled a skunk you know that even from miles away, the smell is strong and potent. I have that in my house. Not to mention it’s not just any skunk, I have a DEAD skunk in my roof. Which means coupled with the foul smell it already carries, I have the smell of death lingering as well. The thing about my roof is that I don’t really have an attic, there’s a small place between the actual roof and my living quarters, but I don’t have access to it, it’s only about a foot-tall at its highest point. Unfortunately that’s all the room a skunk would need to make a nice little nest.
How it got up there, I have no idea. I assume it stuck its sneaky little paws in the cracks between bricks and made its way up, although I don’t know how it could have possibly gotten inside! Of course it could always be a raccoon that was sprayed by a skunk and crawled right in. I’ve heard they’re better climbers than skunks anyhow, unless, since my house is up against a hill, a skunk just jumped right in. It really doesn’t make much sense but I smell something skunky up there.
If it was a mouse or maybe even a squirrel I wouldn’t even bother with trying to get it out, but because it’s so big I have to. It can take 1-2 years for a something that size to decompose, and if that happens I can’t imagine how much worse the smell will be. Basically my house is a dump right now, just smelly and dreadful, I can hardly live here. However, I will not be forced out of my home for some dead animal! Oh no, I’ll break out the hardhats if I need to get him out, hopefully the MANY animal control places I’m calling will be able to help me out. How else would I deal with a dead animal in the roof?
The Woodpecker War
My neighbor has a woodpecker problem, and I’m sorry but I think it’s so funny. Not the problem itself, but the way he deals with it. If my memory serves me correct, it’s been going back and forth for about two years now, but it might not have been quite that long. I know we’ve had a woodpecker in the neighborhood for much longer than that, you can almost always hear it drilling away at neighboring trees, he drilled a hole in my siding once but that was the only issue I’ve ever had with him. But Tom (my neighbor) definitely has a serious problem.
For a little background, Tom is a single dad which in of itself isn’t something that you see every day; but his access to toys and his lack of sleep make him a force to be reckoned with. His woodpecker problem started, like I said, about two years ago; and at first Tom tried all of the usual steps. I saw him hang up reflectors, he bought some weird repellant to spray where the woodpecker was drilling, and when he could he patched up the holes. You could clearly see that he was trying to reasonably get rid of the woodpecker, but after a year he had to install a metal repair trim because there was so much damage, and even after that the woodpecker came back! I guess after that it was game on.
The yelling was the first thing, the woodpecker will drill at this little tinted window in Tom’s bedroom but when he opens it, it flies away. So now when he opens it, he’ll yell little obscenities out at the bird. Another thing (my personal favorite) that I’ve seen him do is shoot at the bird with his son’s Nerf gun; I’ve never seen him hit closer than 6 inches to the woodpecker but you have to appreciate the effort. Recently I’ve watched him put out some of his kids’ little green army men up in the window seals and set up his daughter’s sound activated Robo-dog on the deck, along with a few other childish ploys. It is the craziest thing to watch and I’m excited to see what he comes up with next!
Squirrel Stuck in Attic
The first time the landlord found a squirrel stuck in the attic it turned out to be the least of our problems. My husband Ben and I had heard scratching in the walls but just assumed it was mice and set out traps, but when Ben went to fix the water heater, it turned out to be a very different situation. The squirrel was nesting in the attic insulation and making a mess of everything! We tried to get him out but the wiley thing slipped right past us and hid amidst the many boxes so we called the owner of the house to come over and take a look. He searched the wreckage for a while before discovering the screen where the thing had chewed its way into our home, and all it came down to was chasing the scoundrel out and kicking it to the curb.
It didn’t take long for the critter to come back out into the open and right into the owner’s plan. Being men of many talents, the owner and my husband had it surrounded and rapidly evicted from the home then boarded his only entrance shut, but little did we know he also trapped ANOTHER squirrel INSIDE the house! We didn’t realize it until the next day and now it’s become a fiasco! The second squirrel has been running amuck through attic, the vents, and the walls for over a day now, scratching and clawing his way around, truly making an awful mess, and get this: when we woke up this morning, THE SQUIRREL WAS STUCK IN THE HOOD VENT ABOVE THE STOVE! Fortunately he’s still alive so no dead, rotting smell; yet. The owners are looking for a trapper to come take care of it now, and honestly, I wished they had called sooner; it’s turned into a lot more trouble than it was worth just for a dumb squirrel stuck in an attic.
Woodpecker in the House
It was after a week of getting no sleep that I realized we had a woodpecker in the house. I didn’t exactly know where or how it got in, but I definitely knew that the constant clanging and pecking was from a woodpecker no doubt about it. When I told my dad what I knew it to be, he was very unhappy, as an avid bird watcher he didn’t want to cause any of the winged creatures harm, but he reluctantly believed me and we set out looking for it. We had to wait for night to fall before we could start our search, the darn thing only seemed to cause ruckus when everyone was trying to get a good night’s rest, but as soon as the sun fell the woodpecker started up.
The odd thing was that the sound it made wasn’t its usual beak-on-wood sound as you would expect it to be, it had a hollow, metal note to it that we couldn’t quite identify, so we split up. I went to the attic and my dad went for the basement, my two year old brother (who insisted on helping us) sat in the kitchen and listened for, or more likely slept through, the bird’s obnoxious sounds. As I crawled around in the dingy, old attic, I struggled to focus on not falling through the ceiling, and locating the bird, until I crawled right past it. I cried out for my dad and went running/speed crawling back down the ladder and into the living room, where we met each other out of breath. Panting and smiling, we both exclaimed that it was in the chimney, which wasn’t exactly something to be excited about but we were both just proud that our detective work paid off.
Finding the woodpecker, as it turns out, was the easy part. Since it had made its home between the chimney stack and the metal piping, there was no easy way to get at it. Having a woodpecker in the house was panning out to be a lot more work than I had expected. My dad suggested we tear down the bricks of the chimney so we could remove it safely, unfortunately for him my mother was not going to let him do that. Instead we called in the pros and let them handle it, we had to move out of our house for about a week, but when we came back we were able to sleep soundly since there were no more woodpeckers in the house.
Raccoon Attack
My dog isn’t little, she’s a 110 pound black lab, so imagine my surprise when I woke up to find two raccoons attacking her! I’ve lived in Utah for about two years now and I’m no stranger to wildlife, from deer in my backyard to woodpeckers in my trees, they’re everywhere all the time, but this wasn’t just a sighting; it was an attack! The day had truly started just like any other day, sending my kids off to school and dropping Jason (my husband) off at work before departing for work myself. After my 9-5 I came home to enjoy an evening of TV watching and games with my family, around 10 we all slowly made our way to bed, Raven (my dog) joined Jason and me in our room. Somewhere around 2 a.m., I woke up and realized that my usual foot warmer had left her spot at the end of the bed vacant and cold; however, I shook it off and snuggled deeper into the comforter and slowly drifted back to sleep until… BANG! A loud crash blasted up the stairs and was promptly followed by yelping and barking, and an odd screeching I had never heard before. I knew immediately something unwanted was downstairs and rushed to the aid of my sweet dog, Jason followed quickly behind me.
We busted into what had been our living room, but now more accurately resembled a war zone, only to find Raven entangled with not just one, but two raccoons! All the animals were bloody and snarling, but my dog seemed to have the worst of it. Her ear was missing the tip, her eye was swollen and cut, her sides were raked and bleeding, and she had one of the coons attached to her underbelly, the other biting at her neck. Of course, we instantly joined the fight, tearing the animals away and doing our best to chase them outside. After what seemed like hours we finally got the striped bandits out of our house and away from our dog.
Luckily, Raven only needed a few stitches and a rabies shot, the worst of the damage was done to our house itself! There was raccoon pee on the couches and the piano, the cupboards in our kitchen were open and their contents spilled, muddy footprints decorated the walls and floors like wallpaper, and, probably the worst of all, they had practically eaten my two year old son’s favorite stuffed animal. Soon enough we tracked all the mess back to the start of it all, the doggy door. The sneaky buggers had seen our pets go in and out and done the same, needless to say we boarded it up the next morning and Raven has been very wary of all catlike creatures; after all, she doesn’t need ANOTHER raccoon attack.
Mice Phobia
The fear of mice is a very common phobia known as musophobia or miceaphobia, people who deal with this fear can experience anything as small as a start, or as detrimental as full blown anxiety attacks and, as a psychotherapist, it’s a phobia I encounter quite often. I also work from my home so that clients are more comfortable opening up to me, hopefully you understand where I’m getting with this. A few weeks ago I discovered my dog, Ruger, barking and scratching at my dishwasher of all things, it was odd behavior but I just brushed it off; until I opened the pantry door and a mouse ran across my foot right underneath my stove! I cannot afford to have the nasty, little creatures running wild in my home, especially if I’m in a session with someone who suffers from musophobia!
I took action immediately, I laid traps in the pantry, behind the dishwasher, and underneath the stove, and even laid poison outside (in places my dog couldn’t get to it). I took every precaution I knew to take, but last week I found another mouse in my food storage, perfectly content and snacking on a Hershey’s Almond Chocolate bar. I tried to catch it but the darn thing was too quick, there was no way I could grab it, so more traps were bought and set up. I thought I had it under control until, DURING A SESSION, one of the little rodents ran right through my office. Luckily my patient wasn’t particularly afraid of mice, but it did give us both a start. After that I called in the professionals, I just couldn’t risk it any longer.
Now these guys were fast, they were at my house three days after I called, and they could have been the ghostbusters with all the gear they had ready for me. They set up nine traps total, seven in my house and two in my garage, placed kill boxes (small poison boxes) outside to stop them before they could run in, and they sealed up any hole the mice had chewed in the wall so they couldn’t keep sneaking their little butts around. We’ve already caught two and it’s a huge relief for me. Now any client in my home, with a mice phobia or not, won’t have to ever see them again.
Snake in the Wall
My life became Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets last year when we found out our snake was in the wall. Benny is a Boa Constrictor that my daughter was given by a friend who was moving to Alaska and just didn’t have room for the massive 6-foot snake. We didn’t either but since Sasha loved him so much, we did anyway, without exactly understanding the caretaking it would require. Although we had been given the giant aquarium for the snake, he wasn’t done growing and sprouted two more feet in the next month or two making him too large for the cage, but we just couldn’t afford his new home just yet, BIG MISTAKE. With his strength and length, it didn’t take him long to figure out how to push the top off and sneak out from his home. Luckily we caught him and were able to more adequately secure him inside, or at least we thought.
While my husband and I were at work, and Sasha and her sister were at school, Benny the Boa had plenty of time to plot his escape. I’m still not sure how he did it, but he definitely did and by the time we got home, we were trying to solve the mystery of the vanishing snake. We looked everywhere, high and low inside cupboards and behind dressers. We searched here and there and everywhere but we could not find him! The Amber Alert went on in our house for about a month, but it seemed like he had slithered himself into the woods and out of our lives. I’ll admit I was a little relieved but Sash was heartbroken by his disappearance so we kept our hopes up and our eyes peeled, I mean how hard could it be to spot an 8-foot giant?
As it turns out, it was pretty hard. Benny had to find us. About two nights ago while Kaitlyn (my other daughter) was sleeping, she woke up to find that the sneaky snake had intertwined his scaly, slippery body with her legs and the bed posts and was trying to climb behind the bed. Fortunately she was too sleepy to be startled and instead just untangled him, carried him upstairs, and plopped him onto Sasha’s bed with a disgruntled “I found your snake”. He had been crawling around in the walls and the air vents, probably just feeling out his new jungle since we had never let him. Everyone’s glad to have him back, and I’ll admit that even I’m a little pleased with the return of our snake from the wall.
Raccoon on the Roof
As much as I love to chase balls, playing with the raccoon on the roof was much more fun. Hi, my name is Trigger. I’m a four year old yellow lab and I love, love, love chasing animals, almost as much as playing with my human, Carson. Ever since my family moved to Huntsville, Utah, I’ve had all the animals you could dream of chasing. Mice, deer, cats, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, and even cars (but I don’t know if those count as animals), my mom always yells at me to leave them alone, but I know she really appreciates when I keep them far away from Carson and our house. Dad sometimes takes me on special trips where all I do is chase ducks and bring them to him, those are my favorite days, but the day I chased the raccoon on the roof was one of my favorites.
It was just a regular night, mom and dad were asleep and I was laying at the bottom of the bed keeping watch, that’s when I heard the black-masked bandit sneaking around. I warned my parent’s with a loud ‘WOOF’ and ran outside to investigate further. What I found was unbelievable! The raccoon was trying to get off of the roof! No way was I going to let that happen, dad would be very disappointed if I let it get away without paying its penance for disturbing my watch. I jumped up on the wall and barked as loud as I could at it, he tried to escape to the other side of the house but I met him there, still howling and snarling. As he ran from one side to the other, I followed close behind, running laps around the house. I could have been Usain Bolt I was moving so fast!
Eventually mom and dad came to make sure I was okay, they told me I was a good boy and brought me inside, dad took care of the raccoon on the roof while I was rewarded for my bravery. Although it wasn’t chasing ducks with dad or mice with Carson, it was the best day because I protected my family and saved them from disaster. Never again will any creature mess with Trigger, they know how tough I am, but secretly I’ll miss the little guy, I’ve never done something quite as bold as rescuing my family from the raccoon on the roof, yet.
Squirrels Chewing Christmas Lights
Now I don’t know if anyone else is having this problem, but I’ve got squirrels chewing the Christmas lights that are wrapped around my house. Every year I’ve dealt with them but never like this, the lights are stripped to the wire in some places, chewed at in others, and completely gnawed through in one or two! I couldn’t believe it when my daughter called to tell me that the lights had shut off after only a week of being up! It seemed unreal to me that any of the bulbs had gone out, but I crawled up anyway to check it out; and, very much to my surprise, I found them split in two right where the cable crossed underneath the pine next to my house. Well after that I had no doubt who the culprits were, after all, squirrels have just about the sharpest teeth you’ve ever seen.
Since I couldn’t just up and replace my lights every time one of the pests got their hands on them, I had to figure out a way to keep my lights in one piece, and the squirrels too. I tried the pigeon spikes, no luck; cutting the branches that hung over the house, they climbed up the stucco. After my ideas were all out the window, I took it to my most trusted advisor; Google. As it turns out, several other people had been dealing with squirrels chewing at their Christmas lights as well, but the universe was on my side. A man in Maine had just this problem, and had the solution for it as well.
So, following the tips I got on my favorite search engine, I ran some of the extra electric fencing I had left from my horse pasture along with the new lights, and plugged it in (on a very low setting). If it could keep my horses in the field, it could keep the squirrels off my lights! I kept my eye out for any funny business that night, and sure enough around 8 o’clock, my unexpected victim hopped from the tree to my roof. It sat next to the bulbs for a minute, looking around for any predators, before it grabbed at them, and BAM, just like Holly Holms and Rhonda Rousey, it was lights out for the squirrel! I haven’t had any problems since, but it might not have been the best way to deal with squirrels chewing on my Christmas Lights.