Monday, January 26, 2009

Ma'am, There is Not an Animal in Your Attic



Today I was exonerated! I know they talked about me; thought I was crazy. But no more. Now we are working together, again, to downsize: we're ready to rid the house of whatever animal is setting up a workshop in the attic.

The exterminator came in to check and remove traps he had placed a few days ago. These traps had been placed 3 times already in the past few weeks, with no evidence of success. This morning, the exterminator left, saying very politely, "You might be hearing something late at night in your walls, but I don't think it's an animal!" I told him I would not ask for more traps; I'd watch and listen and let them know if any new evidence became available that might help them.

It wasn't that I was letting them out of their contract easily; they have been to my house 5 times already during January. The first time, I complained of animal noise in the attic, and they found a hole through the wall in the gutter. They patched the hole and left 5 traps. The second time, they came to check the traps. Three traps had sprung, but no bait had been taken and no animal had been caught. The exterminators came back several times and placed traps in different parts of different attics (we have 3). A supervisor even rechecked the entire roofline from a ladder.

The logical situation would be that with a hole patched, an animal would be trapped in the attic and would either go for the bait or would die of starvation somewhere within the walls and would stink. Nothing happened. But nights, sometimes 11:30, sometimes 1:00, and once at 4:30 AM, my husband, I, or both of us would hear noises and would listen and try to locate the noise. I went outside, shined flashlights, listened with my ear to walls, sat quietly staring at ceilings...and heard animal activity. I think Santa's workshop might be relocating to my attic! There is scratching, scraping, banging around, twanging, pitter-patter, sawing, and gnawing.

Then, this morning, after the exterminator left with his traps and his opinions, I heard scraping and gnawing above my head, during business hours for the first time. I phoned the exterminator and he came back...and heard it! He set more traps. He believes me now. I hope we get the animal(s) out before they have a problem or cause a problem.

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