Nesting Nightmare Continues

Can I just tell you how much I LOATHE squirrels?!? I absolutely detest the little rodents. Honestly, the only good squirrel is a stuffed one. Are you ready for part 2 of my nesting nightmare? Because here it comes...

I know that most of you who know me must think I'm over-reacting about this home improvement project. What's the big deal, right? Just a bit of dirty hand prints from the electricians and a bit of hole patching. Oh contrare, mon frere. My house is covered in drywall dust and crumbly plaster, electrical wires, and now fleas!!! (Bastard squirrels.) So, just to show you how cool I've actually been about being 38 weeks pregnant and without a clean place to lay my weary head, I am posting some pictures of what my house looks like right now. This picture is my one and only bathroom. Nice, huh? Do you know how important bathrooms are to pregnant people? They are pretty dang important. And yes, this is Tim (looking real happy) working on RE-drywalling half of the bathroom.

Next, this is a picture of my nursery. Maybe you saw this post on my baby blog? About how happy I was to really have it looking good? Well, this is what is going on in it right now. Real cool. And the best thing about it is now the new carpet has a bit of a flea problem due to the squirrel invasion that took place in my wall. Awesome. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yesterday and today, Tim got those nasty rodents out of my wall (finally). He is quite the man. We've been complaining about this problem for two landlord's worth and now it is finally taken care of. But it was quite the fiasco, I tell ya. First, Sean the new landlord had to knock out all the plaster around where the hole to the outside was. (This is where the rodents got in... right next to the window.) The hole was big enough to stick your face in. Then, Tim and Sean spent the morning trying to "usher" them out peacefully. Peaceful soon turned into violence as the fellas realized the extent of the squirrel damage. These buggers made not just a nest, but a freaking squirrel mansion in our walls. Holy crap. Check out the diagram for a more detailed description of the squirrel manor.


Anyway, the next thing I know is Tim resorting to trying to stab the rodents with a drywall knife. (He has a short fuse when it comes to territory wars.) He had a plumbing "snake" and kept probing them until one by one they left the top nest. This was tricky, because we didn't know how many there were. Every time it seemed like we had gotten them all, another one would start cooing all pissed off in the wall. I helped get rid of three of them. (I may have gotten a bit overeager in kicking out squirrel #3 - I poked him really hard with a crowbar and he flew out of the hole three flights. Oops.) All together, there were six squirrels. The worst ones were numbers 5 and 6. Both of those guys hid in the floor. Tim and Sean got frustrated with waiting on #5 (we didn't know then about #6) to come back up, so Sean opened up a hole in the apartment underneath and stuck a leaf blower in there! But when that didn't work, other than blowing out ancient dust into my nursery, he cut the hole bigger and got one of his workers to stick his head up in there and water-gun the squirrel out. Then, #5 tried to get into the nursery - hence the flea problem. They finally got him out. Here is his picture. (He's not dead, just stunned after flying through the air three floors. Punk.)

Today, Tim and Sean got #6 out. Tim hurt #6 pretty badly when he pinned him up against the wall. So far, all is silent in the walls. Hopefully, that was the last of them. The fellas patched up the hole really well with mesh wiring, insulation, spray expanding foam, and anything else they could stuff in there. It was like an episode of "Tool Time."

The squirrels are gone, but I still have lots of naked drywall and holes that need patching. Also, on Saturday, the electricians ventured into the guest room abyss and jacked up the electrical stuff they had already completed in the kitchen. Dang it. So, they will all be back on Monday. Joy of joys. But Tim and Sean worked most of the day today to finish running the heat pipes, that way the plumbers will be able to finish their stuff tomorrow. Is the end in sight? Who knows. All I know is that this baby of mine feels almost ripe and he may want to drop from my tree any day now!