Ahg! Flying Squirrel in the House (or, I'd be dead in a second in the wild)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, we have flying squirrels in our attic - decidedly different from normal brown squirrels. Smaller, more mouse/bat like with little black marbles for eyes, nocturnal, the obvious flap of furry skin between their front and back paws, smaller tail. You get the idea.

So we have a trapper helping us get them and plug the holes in the attic to limit future egress (oooooo, fancy term - but he used it).

So when it is clear that Game 4 of the ALCS is going to go into extra innings, I tell my 6 year-old that it is time for bed and get ready to march him upstairs. But first, I tell him that he has to take his empty glass into the kitchen.

He goes it and snaps on the light - “Dad - there a SQUIRREL in the kitchen!!” he shouts. I go in and there in the corner by the back door, trapped as much by the light as anything, is Mr. Squirrel. About as big as a teacup.

Mr. Squirrel starts flitting about, looking for a path of escape. My son wants to check him out and my cat - 14 year old Mike the Cat - enters the room and takes interest. Oh shit. Mr. S flits into the bathroom off the kitchen; I shut the door and grab Mike the Cat and Jake and get them upstairs, where my wife is in bed doing a crossword puzzle.

“Honey - there’s a flying squirrel in the kitchen”
“WHAT?!”
“Look, I can’t talk right now - please keep an eye on Mike and get Jake to bed”
“WHAT?!”

On the way downstairs, I grab a bathtowel from the linen closet. I go into the bathroom. No squirrel. I know they are nocturnal and bat-like, so I begin looking in any crevices I can see; sure enough, leaning over and looking up under the pedestal sink, there’s Mr. S looking right down at me, completely freaked (like I’m not?). I go out, grab a wooden spoon from a drawer, go back in, shut the door and then slowly put the spoon up into the crevice under the back of the sink.

In about 4 seconds, Mr. S plops out of the crevice and begins to flit about again. In about 30 seconds I am able to smother him with the towel and control him with one hand. Wimp that I am, I take him out the back door and flip him into the bushy area past our yard.

Oy.

2

Aww.

We have 4 cats in our house, so Mr S would not survive his indoor experience. As soon as you have one cat locked into a room one of the others would be going after it. Open the door to place second cat in and the first one runs back out to give chase.

Impossible odds at our house. I am sure you will be seeing Mr S again, hopefully this time inside a trap and not loose.

:slight_smile:

3

We had the Flying Squirrel Squadron based in our attic when we lived in Chattanooga.

Cute, aren’t they?

BTW–you should release them farther away, next time. He only climbed back into your attic again.

4

Poor Mr. S! Poor WordMan! :smiley:

5

When I was a kid we lived in a big old house with a fireplace, and one day, a gray squirrel lost its footing on the chimney and fell right into the grate in our living room. He immediately streaked up the stairs and into my brother’s bedroom, where we spent the next half hour trying to herd him out the window (not too cruel, there was a sunroom roof and lots of big trees right outside). Then we spent another half hour cleaning sooty squirrel prints off the carpets, bedding, walls and furniture.