Critters in the Attic Update

Critter free, day three. I’m feeling hopeful and confident enough to say what we did to have driven them away for good.

Well, there was some activity in my bathroom ceiling above the shower. I turned on the exhaust fan and left it running around the clock for a couple of days (okay, all week) and I didn’t hear them there again.
Also, we blasted the TV (or the stereo, if there was nothing good on :)) near the end of the house from where we thought the varmints were coming and going…I think that helped.
Interim measure (used when husband was away and I was on overload from sleep deprivation): I slept with the pillow over my head to block out that scratching, scratching, scratching noise that made my stomach contents heave up into my lower esophagus….
My husband made several trips up to the attic~ no easy feat. It entails hauling the ladder from the garage to the house, then up two flights of stairs to a closet in my office. He then had to squeeze through a very small cut out in the closet’s ceiling to get into the attic…no unlike how the squirrel must squeeze through an opening about the size of a quarter to get into the attic from outside in the first place. A sonic repellant was set up and lights were left on.
Traps were set. Nothing was caught, but maybe the critters took the bait. We saw one squirrel in the front yard yesterday that was looking more than a little ragged. Yay.

What I learned as we talked with people about what to do about this problem is that almost everyone we know is dealing with it right now (or knows someone who is). This gave us a sense of camaraderie, a feeling that we weren’t in it alone. We were all rooting for each other and against the critters. Lots of people had advice and all of it was good. My motto: “Try everything” was tempered by my husband’s motto: “Let’s think about it first,” a combination that has served us well over the years and did not let us down this time.