I HAVE THE INFO

I was wrong about there being no surprises.  But this is the nature of home ownership, right?

I found things this weekend…things that made me reconsider my otherwise universally warm feelings towards towards animals domesticated or otherwise.

To start with,  I pulled up rugs in the family and dining rooms after our painting was finished.  Parts of the matting under the rug by the front door all but sat up and waved hello to me when I pulled them up and turned them over.

And then there was the dining room.  The exterior wall’s corners were staked out by two different types of animals.  In one corner,  I noticed after pulling up the rugs that there was plenty of bird seed around the tac board. In the next, there was the sweet perfume of dog urine.

The tac board lining most of the room was brittle.  The wood broke around the nail, meaning that after I pryed the boards up, I had to go back and yank the nails.  The corner used as a pooch urnial on the other hand,  the tac boards were black and rubbery. They came right up, completely intact.

A silver lining in every cloud, I suppose.

So thats the domestic animal scene over on Edge hill road.

Now, for the wild:

After closing, Stephanie and I had lunch with our realtors and then went to the house. When we got to the deck, I watched as a squrrill ran across our roof and upto the attic vent.

I watched it go up into it.  And promptly, convinced myself that I was hallucinating.

2 days later, I was taking a rest between painting rooms and the curiosity finally got the best of me.  I took a ladder and went over to the crawl space and got up there.

I was immediately confronted with big pile of leaves, twigs and torn insulation. To make things even more awesome,  the drey(technical speak for the  squirrel nest) is sitting right next to a bunch of knob and tube wiring.

Also, I found that I wasn’t so much hallucinating on Friday.  The attic fan(right above the drey) was open.  Except for the remnants of some chewed up wire mesh.

I called a wildlife removal guy tonight.

I love squirrels.  but not as housemates.