By Staff
January 8th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
This fancy-tailed little asshat has been living peacefully in my walls for over a year. I didn’t mind.
Noisy, uninvited, and given its private unique exit.
But a couple of months ago he began removing bits of drywall on his side of the wall, in an increasingly noisy and concerted nighttime campaign to immigrate to my side of the wall.
I am not looking for a housemate.
I called Skedaddle. They sent over a crew of nine people and quoted $2200. To oust a single squirrel. I had no words.
That’s a lie. I had words. I did not have $2200.
The squirrel was shown the door.
But then two days ago the squirrel broke through. At midnight I found myself perched six feet up on my mantel, in my underpants, screaming threats maniacally down a ragged two-inch hole in my living room wall.
Today my kid held the ladder while I attached a post-apocalyptic-looking, one-way squirrel door to the outside hole. $50 on Amazon.
Joan Krygsman is a singer/songwriter/musician, and founding member of the band Trout Lily, and an artist/designer/illustrator and founder of Striped Aardvark. Over the years she has also been an accountant, a librarian, a flight attendant, an eco-warrior, a wielder of power tools, a proud Dundastard and a mother.
Decades ago, friends of my parents loaded up the car and went on vacation. They did not know that while the door was propped open as they went in and out loading the car, a squirrel ran in. They then closed the door and off they went.
When they arrived home, they walked in and thought they’d been robbed, looted and more – as their furniture was shredded, stuff was everywhere, and most concerning, there was blood on the walls. They then found a dead squirrel in the house. There’s a reason for the term “going squirrelly” – these guys can go pretty nuts!