to write wittily or well.
Although my upstairs heat is working again–after four of the coldest nights in Ashvegas in many years. I know it’s been at least five years since it’s been so cold, because that’s how long we’ve had our solar hot water and heating system.
If you’re considering solar, and you have an ancient cinder block home, and you have to run the water pipes to the upstairs air exchanger outside the house, on the north side of the house, and you neglect to properly enclose and insulate them because you’re lazy and it would cost more cash, then you can count on them freezing and screwing your upstairs heating capacity–when it is ass-cold.
Single supa Edgy (that would be me–partnered with traveling enviro-dude who was off saving the world elsewhere while we shivered under our blankies) did crawl into the attic with the intention of trying to figure out what the problem was when the heat initially failed. I also needed the phone number of the heating company, which they kindly emboss on their air exchanger. I could have used the phone book, of course, but that would have been the wimpy way out. There, in my shredded paper-filled attic, I discovered two things one never hopes to find in one’s upper story. One would be a large hole in the side of the house. Two would be small beady eyes and a swishy gray tail. Yep, I initially blamed the squirrel for the heating debacle. But it seems she’s just an additional problem.
Solutions? Fliss suggests acid rock. Mom suggests cut-up Coke cans glued to the hole. I suggest calling in the professionals and paying them tons of money to take care of everything.
And then I’m going to sleep. For a long time. In a warm, squirrel-proof home.
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I second calling in the expensive professionals. Although, if you change your mind, I have a few empty Diet Coke with Black Cherry and Vanilla cans around here. I will sell them for a reasonable price.
I had squirrels in my home once. If you board up the entrance, which was my first solution, they WILL chew their way out - they chewed through metal. I also tried Aqua Velva - which someone told me worked. I had some success with that but in the end called Critter Getters her in the ville. Now, they did finally get the job done (set traps on the roof with bait) but it took quite a while. They said squirrels are territorial so once they got the family out then we could board it up for good. In the end they did succeed but i had some trouble with them being responsive, so if there is any other gig in town, i’d use them instead.
Rat poison. Or the BBOD (Big Bucket of Death)…….
Aqua Velva?!?!
My family has a rather hysterical story of a family of chipmunks trapped in the attic of our log cabin and my Dad and a towel and lots of language he learned in the army.
i’m noticing a trend here - you’re tagging just about every post “feisty” on your bloggy. interesting….
Love the single supa edgy
Hey, I’m living the low-income version of your life . . . propane gas ran out so we’re trying to get through this (hopefully!) last cold bit with space heaters, my counterpart is kicking it in Puerto Rico being warm, and there are now mice in our kitchen cupboards, as announced by my roommate’s screams at six AM this morning.
right there with you, sister.
I’m telling you, there are so few problems in life that can’t be solved by the judicious application of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.
Actually, I did succeed in chasing the squirrels out of my porch column with loud music blared at them day in & day out - Mama Squirrel carried her babies out with this look on her face like how dare I expose them to such sinful things.
Granted, she came back a month later, shoved the brick off the column and raised another family, but still. It worked briefly! Also my mom says either copious amounts of mothballs or cotton soaked in ammonia will make them move away.
This is sounding altogether too much like a re-write of Dr. Zhivago.
O Vick,
I LOVE Dr. Zhivago. Except the death part.
I like to just pay through the nose sometimes and be done with it. I just like things to work and run smoothly, the exact opposite of my dad who didn’t mind if things broke down every once in a while so that he could ENJOY fixing them. Me, I’d rather not know that there is an engine under my hood, the only things I want to try and fix are computer related or handheld gadgets. If it has to do with a tractor, a lawn mower, a weed eater, a household heating unit, or a car motor then I will just pay someone else to deal with it every time.