I know it's been a long time since I have even touched this blog, and I apologize for that. My time and urge for creativity has been taken up by other projects, such as a gallery show and another long term project I still have in the works. But more on that another time (if you're lucky).
This past fall I had a couple of encounters with raccoons, namely them waking me up at four in the morning, pissing me off. After that, I had a small rat problem, during which a single mouse was caught as well. The final solution involved a barricade in my air duct, blocking the passage, while leaving a pair of glue traps on the side from which the rats accessed that portion of the duct (which led straight to my bedroom, robbing me of sleep as they tried to eat a hole in the metal). After the rats disappeared, I simply left the barricade and associated trap in place as a preventive measure. I spent the next few months checking it periodically, eventually letting this drop off completely as there was nothing to find.
Yet another time there was a drunken, injured, sick, or simply stupid bat flying around my front door, freaking out both my dog and myself. This is why, when over the last week or so I heard high pitched squeaking sounds, I assumed that it was from bats outside, as for a number of nights my window next to the bed stayed open. It only would happen at night when I was in the bedroom, so I thought nothing more of it.
Until it happened when the window was shut, and I could finally tell that it was not coming from outside.
As per standard reaction, I immediately grabbed my knife and flashlight, and followed the dog (who was going crazy) out to the other room. My first thought was "crap, the bat's inside," especially as the dog himself was looking up at the ceiling in confusion. Then we both realized (thanks to the cat, to be fair) that it was coming from the vent. I opened it up, shined the flashlight in (shone the flashlight?), then told myself that I refused to deal with it just then, and put the vent cover back on.
What it was, as it turned out, was a mouse stuck to the glue trap, along with three additional mice who had already died (I assume, I did not check to be sure, but the live one was obviously alive, so I assumed that the others were dead). There were also the hairs of some larger animal, neither mouse nor rat, stuck along the barricade, though the traps themselves were not overly disturbed and there was no additional sign of the creature.
I tossed the traps out, replaced them, and cleaned out the hair. Last night, nothing happened. Tonight, I heard some sound (I was watching a show online with Sparky, wearing earphones, so I cannot say what exactly it was), followed the boys out, and heard a panicked squeaking. I did not check the trap as I felt it safe to assume it was stuck, then went back to the show.
There is no mouse stuck in the trap, and the squeaking stopped by the time I went back out to take the mouse out of its misery (and so I would not have to hear it all night), but there was another big tuft of hair in the duct. Looking online at my most likely suspect confirmed both that they do eat small animals and the colors of the hair (they were an inch to an inch and a half long, with light and dark bands with frosted tips, vaguely wavy), so I am fairly confident that I have three things, one of which is a big hole in the duct-work, and I know exactly where it probably is. Another is a gap in the siding that I was not aware of. And finally I have a raccoon stalking mice in my air ducts.
Of course, it is entirely possible that I had a raccoon under my house and then sealed up his escape hole, and he is simply starving and trying to find his way out. I will have to consider that possibility.
Now I am faced with a dilemma. If I assume that the raccoon is finding his way in and out and I seal any gaps, I could be trapping him in there, or I could be keeping him out. If I assume he is trapped in there, and I open it, I could be letting more things under there. Furthermore, regardless of that, if I (or rather, Sparky, as I am claustrophobic) seal up the hole in the vent, I could be keeping him out or trapping him in. In which case he will either die in my ducts, which would make me feel guilty and create a horrible stench, or he will create a bigger mess by breaking his way out of it somewhere, or even figure out how to come up out of the vents themselves into the house, giving me a heart attack, giving the cat a heart attack, and giving the dog a new playmate, which the raccoon would not be happy about and would then hurt the dog. All said, that is a low possibility, but I am learning not to underestimate these things.
I'm making myself dizzy and uncomfortable. Time for bed.
