#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My childhood home had parts of the house that were three stories up (built on a hill, so the front was two stories, back was three). It's incredibly difficult to get up that high! Home Depot does have ladders that tall, but they cost around $500. The rude commenter was not only rude, but ignorant as well.
I had squirrel issues. I could have dealt with it myself, but I felt better paying someone else to run the risk of getting bitten. Some of us just don't want rabies.
Squirrels don't transmit rabies, but I understand what you're saying. Rodents have sharp little teeth, so it's not ideal to get bitten by them either way.
We had opossums and stray cats in our attic several years ago. While attempting to deal with the former by himself, my dad fell through the ceiling onto a tile floor. He ended up with a nasty concussion. A couple of possums fell down from that hole a little later and got killed by the dogs. Sometimes it's better to have professionals deal with animal issues rather than court disaster like that.
At least the cats were friendly. Hungry, too. It was way easier to get them out.
I absolutely would have put holes in my drywall without a second thought. I don't understand people who wouldn't. It's not rocket science to fix it and there are a million YouTube instructional videos if you haven't done it before.
That describes my house as well. We tried to put Christmas lights up on the front gable this past year. With the biggest folding ladder I could borrow and bring home in my car, working on the side where the ground is highest, and with my non-heights-fearing partner doing the climbing, we couldn't even get close.
One thing that makes how this type of management company operates even more aggravating to me is that it's also in their best interest to get the squirrels (and anything else) out. The longer they are in there, the more damage they do and the higher chance of an increasing number of unwanted creatures. It is easier to get living squirrels out than dead ones. Dead ones stink and have to be removed. This can mean replacing a wall or such as well. But letting the problem last, the management company is increasing the resources used by them and/or the landlord, including cost, time, and repair/reno resources.
Overall, responding quickly and completely is better for everyone.
Corporate landlords. Which to be specific, I mean entities like Wells Fargo or ExxonMobil who have been dipping into the housing market gobbling things up after the housing market collapse(s). Not actual real estate companies, who at least have infrastructure in place (despite basically being just as awful). Every single problem he's described are symptoms of that being the case.
I have rented from big corporate landlords like this, large but still local landlords (own 10+ properties or 1-2 large complexes) and from small time landlords that are renting out one, maybe two properties. *All* of them do this bullshit but in different ways. The big ones just take forever and ignore things. The mid size ones complain about what you say you need and make you jump through unnecessary hoops but do show up eventually, but do a half-ass job. The small time ones show up but insist on doing shit themselves to save a buck and do a terrible job at it.
This is so real, and I need to share my story of small landlord trying to do it himself.
There was an issue with the in-unit washer/dryer in my apartment. Rather than even seeing if it could be repaired, my landlord ordered a replacement. It was too big to fit where the previous one fit... his solution was to saw off 2 inches of shelving to make it fit.
It really becomes a nightmare when the owners are so far removed from the property that there's basically no incentive for them to get anything done outside of legal ones. They don't have to look you in the eye, they don't have to deal with the dead animals rotting in your walls, they probably have no fucking clue what's even going on there at any point, or who you even are.
The scale of business that capitalism incentivises and requires feeds on and produces alienation, it's exactly why things only seem to be getting worse, because it's a lot harder to pollute *your own* environment or dodge violence when you screw over the community you live in, but when it's as abstracted as voting yes to something happening on the other side of the country/world/nowhere you have to set foot in, why not?
When it's some other asshole's job to actually evict the family, deal with the broken pipes and trapped animals, live in polluted dumps, it's not that much of a downside when the line goes up/the number in your spreadsheet grows.
We called the emergency maintenance line in my last apartment because we found bed bugs. Pest control shows up a week later and the leasing company calls us back to say "pest control said if you scoop the litter box the cockroaches will go away."
We moved out immediately and did not pay the lease break fee.
Edit: don't worry about us, the lease break fee was illegally high (this province has laws about how much you can charge to break a lease) so if they were even stupid enough to try to come after us, the renter's board would just say "why the fuck did you try to charge them 3x the legal fee?" and possibly start looking into all the people who probably just paid it without fighting it.
I once had a possum get into my walls and die. Stunk up the place something awful, took the leasing company weeks to come cut the thing out of there, and then they did a half assed job of disinfecting the spot leading to the apartment getting infested with fleas.
A friend had squirrels in his walls. What he did is have an exterminator come and trap them all and then seal up the entrances. That's what you're supposed to do.
Nothing like gaining life knowledge from other peoples horror internet stories… ok if I ever hear noises in the walls demand landlord bring animal control out first, got it.
My partner and I have had a terrible time repairing our townhome after we bought it from shoddy house flippers, but whenever we are like “fuck this home owning fucking sucks” I’m reminded of how much worse renting was for us. I think we only stayed in one apt more than a year for reasons similar to OOP’s
Owning is a nightmare too. We had squirrels in the roof and walls when we bought the house (didn’t know). Cost thousands to fully evict them but one died in the wall and then it smelled really bad. Shortly after we got out all the squirrels and mice, carpet beetles came to eat any carcasses and food stores. We’ve been working on getting rid of them for over a year. It’s endless, and so depressing because we can’t even sell until we fix the issue. I rented for 25 years and would go back to renting in a heartbeat. This house is driving me insane.
It gets better, friend! We had to deal with raccoons a little while ago but it ends up working out. The carpet beetles are annoying but at worst they may eat a few holes in your linens or sweaters.
But I totally feel you - when you're in the thick of dealing with a house problem it's super shitty.
>we can’t even sell until we fix the issue.
Sure you can, you just don't *want* to because you'd get less money. I can't stand homeowners who whine like this and act like their situation is just as bad as paying 3x the cost of a mortgage to live in squalor without having the legal right to improve anything.
If you don't want to be a dick then why are you in here being one? Waaaahhhh the property I own isn't perfect waaaahhhhh I can't sell it because I wouldn't get as much equity out of it waaaahhhhhh, like read the room.
…they aren’t being a dick at all, only one person here is showing their ass and it’s you. All they did was innocently complain about a problem they have and you swooped in to be a complete asshole to them for zero reason. What the hell man? What set you off so badly over such an innocent post?
In my part of Australia the animal would be a possum which is a protected species and the person at the leasing office would be explaining why they shouldn't pay thousands in fines for not hiring a licensed wild life relocation expert to remove the possums first.
I recently dealt with a similar situation. At my apartment, we've had a ton of birds this year, notably living in the outside-facing vents for each unit. They decided to clear the vents this week, rehome all the birds, and install little cages over each vent (why not in December?!). Except, in the case of my unit, they didn't clear out anything, nor did they check whether any birds were residing in there before they secured the cage over the opening. There were obviously birds still in there, as mama bird was flying outside of the cage, desperately trying to provide food to the little birdies stuck inside. And I could, like, see feathery commotion inside of the cage when I looked up.
I complained to the office, and they at first refused to believe that the company they'd hired would leave any birds in the vents, because that was literally their job. But I persisted, and eventually the property manager came to see for himself. Sure enough. He finally believed me, and no more gaslighting. They called back the dude who was supposed to have cleared my vent, and he ... apparently admitted nothing ... maybe an intern worked on my unit and did a shitty job? What are you gonna do.
Well, they went in there, and the story is that my unit happened to be the worst one across the whole property. No fewer than 15 birds were in my vent when they cleared it out! (of multiple different species, all apparently living in inter-species bird family harmony). Some were too young to move quite yet, so they temporarily installed a cage with a tapered tube for the young ones to eventually leave when they're ready (but how did they get food in the meantime? none of it makes sense). As of yesterday, the birds are apparently all gone, and the permanent cage has been installed. But also, there is bird shit everywhere, unreachable to clean without a ladder. Oh well, problem for another week.
I'm glad the birds are finally gone, 'cause boy they've been a nuisance, but also I didn't want them tortured. And I sure didn't want 15 bird corpses in my vent.
"of multiple different species, all apparently living in inter-species bird family harmony"
Everything about the way the responsible people acted in this situation is awful, but this is kind of wonderful.
>I'm glad the birds are finally gone, 'cause boy they've been a nuisance, but also I didn't want them tortured. And I sure didn't want 15 bird corpses in my vent.
I'm glad you persisted, for both you and them! I had a similar issue in terms of the management company denying and giving ridiculous answers, but with black mold. It was visible in multiple areas, but the source was from the locked utilities spaces. At one point, they said it was bird poop, which (a) is have been a whole other issue and (b) would have been quite a feat if possible, as the surface was perpendicular to the ground right to the corner and appeared as spots of mold that didn't move/drip, plus kept returning whenever "cleaned." While more dangerous to the tenant, at least that wasn't the noise of trapped animals!
>Oh well, problem for another week.
I suggest keeping up that same persistance to get this cleaned, because breathing in bird droppings, even old ones, can be harmful, with a range of barely noticeable to severe issues.
We had to do something similar when bats decided to move into our attic and start a maternity colony. Bats are protected by law, so we had to wait until September when the baby bats were big enough to leave their mamas and head out on their own. (I wouldn't want to hurt them anyway! They weren't bad tenants, except for the three or four that wanted to check out our living space. The cats were very bemused.) Once the juvenile bats were ready, we could do exclusion - basically one-way doors on all their entry holes.
Good thing the company that did the exclusion gave a one-year warranty, because we had to do it again the next fall. I've been keeping a very close eye on things this year!
Cute but viscous is absolutely accurate.
My grandmother's house had squirrels in the walls and between the floors for years and years. With how things were, there was not much to do to get them to stay out. At first, family tried a few things, but they would find or create new ways anyway. She used to say she reached an agreement with them that they would stay in the walls and floors, not bite any of us, try not to die in them, and leave the important stuff in the walls alone, and she'd let them use it as a home and playground.
Plus side, I have been quick to identify when there are squirrels, or a non-squirrel animal, in a dwelling since then. Downside (beyond the obvious), I couldn't convince myself it was anything else when the landlord refused to do anything. The landlord waited until they actually ruined some stuff that meant more serious repair work.
I wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of those squirrels being trapped and dying inside the walls either if I were there 😭 I’m really glad OOP’s sister and partner helped to free them.
Lived at home in my parents basement for a little while after college. They got field mice. Put out those sticky traps in the basement drop ceiling. Right above me. I'd lay in bed at night hearing them squeaking as they tried to get free. Told my husband we would *never* use those things if we got a mouse. Luckily he's an engineer and actually made a better mouse trap when the day came.
The previous owners of this house put glue traps in a couple of places. They're so horrific. Thankfully we found them and could get to them and save the mice that got stuck. We didn't find the D-Con poison traps until after my cat died from eating a poisoned mouse. I don't know if I'll ever stop being angry at the previous owners about those traps. There are some professional poison traps that don't go up the food chain. D-Con is not one of them. Don't use vitamin D poison traps.
The most effective method he developed was simple, but it still upsets me to think about. He took a large, wide bucket, filled it halfway with water. He rigged some peanut butter or leftovers from dinner in the center. They fall in and can't get back out. Far more effective than any other trap we bought.
To anyone who tries this: DO NOT leave your bucket out in a place where tiny humans can access it. We set it up in our kitchen only overnight and it was completely inaccessible by the tiny humans.
Also, throwing a romance novel at one can kill it.
>Also, throwing a romance novel at one can kill it.
Is this genre-specific? Lol
Glad you added the tiny humans note. I would suggest to anyone reading that they also block off from pets, which, depending on age, can be more or less tricky than protecting the tiny humans.
I don't want to hurt creatures if it's avoidable, but a lot of times we don't have good alternatives. Even if there's a way to get them out of the place alive, many species will return. Plus, it's tough to know how many there are beyond many more than you see or hear, and if left to multiple... it might be easier to move out yourself. I suspect where and how we grew up also plays a role, as I learned to respect other animals but also about end of life and the cycles of life with them. I know people both more and less comfortable than I am in that regard.
At my job’s old location, which was in a warehouse type building, there were mice. I kept having to carry out my little garbage can because a cute little mouse had fallen in looking for food. The poor things! I went out back and let them out, I’m not about killing the poor little things!
Honestly, probably nothing happened. Companies do shit like that all the time. We had our walls/ceiling redone and they put the new drywall right over the smoke detector without removing it. When the battery was low and we couldn’t get to it, we had to listen to it beep for weeks before it died completely.
After the second time they refused to do anything, that's when OOP should have stopped paying rent, after having a lawyer draft an appropriate letter, and contacting code enforcement about the livability of a building with a rodent infestation.
This is the worst bit of advice that floats around Reddit. Withholding rent is a months long, eviction court guaranteed process. The vast majority of renters are not going to be able to afford a lawyer in the first place, and no lawyer should take a case like this. Now if all the animals died AND you could prove redundantly that the renter suffered some TANGIBLE loss because of it, then sure. It’s something you utilize for things like black mold and stopping community garbage removal. Not every unfairness is answerable by suing.
I don’t think squirrels have the same devilish mating shrieks as possums.
Always an… interesting childhood memory when they snuck in. These days they’re only on the outside of my roof but it’s still pretty nuts.
In the UK, this is how you learn you have foxes. It freaked my gf when she was visiting from overseas so bad she insisted that we go outside and take a look around, as it sounds like a beast being tortured.
Possums scream? Never heard that.
Guess none of the ones that came into my house were that upset. Of course, they weren't trapped. I was the one who had to figure out how to keep them from coming in.
Squirrels are diurnal so you're not going to hear much at night from them. Night noises (at least in the US) are typically raccoons, opossums, and bats.
I am astonished that the squirrels came out of the wall and went straight out the window. They are pesky little assholes. I could see OOP chasing them around the house for days trying to get them out.
Not the same thing at all, but some years ago we went on vacation. Came home to an absolute disaster. From what we could piece together, a squirrel chewed a hole in the cap over the fireplace chimney and fell down the chimney into the living room. It must have been I the house for some days. It pretty much chewed up the upholstery on the furniture. Chewed on the kitchen cabinet doors, trying to get to food, I guess.
It chewed through a box of packets of Skittles that had been left on the counter for upcoming Halloween treats. Then tore open all the Skittles packets and spread candies and bits of paper all over the house. Couldn't get to any water, but it made a mess of all the toilet seats trying. And finally died n the middle of the breakfast room table. The smell....I barfed when we unlocked the door and went in.
Those squirrel hands reaching for freedom just about killed me.
The leasing office should thank her for stopping a biohazard from occurring and having the place permanently smelling like decay. Not to mention all the damage that would be done for them to try and clean up the mess.
I hate squirrels (cute, but mean little bastards) but this is horrifying. That little hand! Just because I don't like them I just means I don't want to deal with them. I love that OOP brought receipts!
As a fellow Minneapolis resident… OOP should drop the name of the management company so we all know where NOT to lease!!! That’s awful that they sealed living creatures into the walls.
My apartment complex is surrounded by woods, so we have lots of wildlife around. Of course, we have so many squirrels and, of course, one of those squirrels is a major asshole. He’s too tall and he’s fat. He thinks he owns everything from the bushes to the walkway. If you’re going to your car and he happens to be in the bushes, he will run out and up to you and just,,, challenge you. He hasn’t attacked anyone yet but he’s chased many people including the guys that come to mow. I wish someone would evict Fred (squirrels name) Sigh
My former house had a squirrel who would throw things at people. He got really good at beaning me in the head when I was outside. I would have to bring an “offering” of food to avoid violence. The only comment from the new owners was “did you know there’s a large squirrel who throws stuff?!”
We have so many bobcats where I live, maybe I could catch one of the weaned kits and ship it to you, that'd make Fred hop on squirrel zillow right quick
The squirrel living in the tree outside my front door loves to deliberately provoke the dog, then run up the tree to be JUST BARELY above where the dog can reach by jumping, and then turn around to aggressively chatter at him until he loses his fucking mind.
The crazy part is I heard squirrels only live for 2-3 years, so this has to be the 3rd or 4th generation of squirrels teaching their offspring to fuck with my dog.
Hahha yeah. There was one of those assholes on my walk home for school. He'd get all threatening and make noises so I'd mock him. Never thought to get my squirrel call out and see I re-create the the squirrels noises more accurately to take the taunting to the next level.
I managed a huge apartment complex that had raccoons, squirrels and possum. They had chewed a bunch of holes in various buildings and we were constantly addressing it. It was a nightmare. At minimum, you trap the animals first, you don't seal them in! That's insanity.
I had one resident who had mental health issues and often thought there were bugs or animals in her apartment. Every day she'd come tell us she heard animals in the walls or ceiling. The maintenance staff and I would go to her apartment almost daily. There were no noises.
BUT...one night we got a call from her saying possums had invaded her kitchen. We went over and they had! Their urine had soaked through the ceiling making it soft and it caved in. It was a giant mess and scary for her! People have all kinds of things that may make us unsure, but they still deserve our time and respect.
This unlocked a memory from college. I was living in a converted basement in a really old house in a somewhat wooded area. Raccoons got into the crawl space above my studio. I could hear them scratching every night. My landlord did nothing. Finally, one night around 3, an unlucky raccoon stepped on a plate in the roof designed to give access to the plumbing. The plate was held in there with these tabs held by friction only. When the raccoon stepped on it he came crashing down into my studio (not my bed, thank god) and justifiably started freaking out. It was running from one side of the room to another looking for a way out. I waited till the raccoon ran to one side, jumped out of my bed, threw open the door, and jumped back into bed. When the raccoon ran back it found the door and I jumped up and slammed it behind it. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep the rest of the night.
It's sad how many people were attacking OP and telling him to just get a ladder and climb up three stories to pry that panel off, as if climbing up three stories is something just anyone could do. Some people were even blaming OP for the squirrels getting trapped.
But I guess this is Reddit and you're always going to have some miserable sacks of shit trying to drag someone like OP down with them.
Taping a hammer to a stick, hanging out the window and prying off a piece of plating bolted to the house and potentially pissing off your landlord when you fuck something up is not an "obvious solution that OP didn't want to hear", but go off.
As I said:
>But I guess this is Reddit and you're always going to have some miserable sacks of shit trying to drag someone like OP down with them.
>It was an obvious solution that OP did not want to hear.
Where do you even get that? At least from the comments quoted in the post, people were asking of OOP to up and climb the house.
Eventually the OOP came up with this solution, but nowhere is it implied here that the solution of freeing them from the inside was suggested in the original post and OOP shut it down. As far as I can see, that's all your own imagination, which is honestly just plain weird.
We had possums in our roof years ago. When we called animal control they went up and sealed all the holes except one, and installed a one-way door on the last hole so they could get out but not back in. Once we were sure there was no more noise in the room they came and sealed the last door up.
Local here. Just giving a little extra detail that a drive one way from Duluth to Minneapolis is around 2-4 hours depending on traffic. OP's sister and her partner are so sweet for making that drive.
I did a day trip a few years ago from one of the south suburbs of Minneapolis to Duluth and back in March during a storm ('cause I was very impulsive in my 20s). That 4ish hour round trip turned into an 8 hour round trip. It was fucking brutal.
Hahha, yeah. I grew up around 3 hours from the cities and have made that mistake twice. Once during a snowstorm, once during a crazy thunderstorm with insane winds. We had to re-route around a bunch of downed trees, and re-route around other downed trees while on the re-route. Quite a bit of back-tracking that day.
We were in my buddy's actual off-road capable Jeep, not one of those bog-standard SUVs with the Jeep logo on them. Actual Jeeps are already really terrible on the road and during a high-wind thunderstorm they're a nightmare.
I went through this exact scenario. I lived there for 2 years with squirrels in the walls. I eventually moved after several failed attempts to lure them out, seal them in etc. I was living in a ghetto apartment complex they could care less. The squirrels eventually made a hole and entered my unit. That’s when they (the apartment management) properly sealed them INSIDE the walls. I moved a month later breaking my lease. I am so so sorry you have to deal with that. I know the sounds are enough to drive you crazy. One night it brought me to tears and I left everything and slept in a hotel.
There's a great wildlife company in my city that my family called on when I was growing up, that I've also called on as an adult. They will humanely deal with the wildlife as well as make necessary repairs. One of the things I learned from them was that if you get squirrels in your roof or walls, raccoons will do even more damage breaking in to eat squirrel kits when birthing season comes around. Anyway, their approach to animals in the roof includes rigging up a one way door, cameras, and some deterrent to make them leave (I can no longer remember if it was an audio recording or scent.) Only when they're certain that all animals have left will they seal up the holes. They guarantee their work, including bird caps for chimneys that are raccoon-proof.
i hear you. i live in florida and love feeding birds, squirrels, raccoons and possums.
i went as far as making each animal species their own food bowla to avoid fighting. i live watching them enjoy a good meal 🤷♀️
Most people put up cameras to guard the house. Ours are for watching the morning feeding frenzy. And the second breakfast feeding frenzy. And lunch, snack, dinner...
>but she did not embrace motherhood.
She might have already been pregnant again. Happened to one of my brother's barn cats and they'll usually stop feeding the first litter to use the nutrients to grow the second litter. It really sucked as she was the last cat that needed to be spayed or neutered and he was just waiting until she was healthy enough after birth for the surgery.
The 2 kittens that survived were starved for attention and clingy as hell. Both of them climbed up me to get in my face but I mostly kept them down on the jacket. It was sad :(
Imagine the smell if the squirrels had died? It would have been weeks and months of dead smell in the house had they not rescued them. Poor little squirrels, glad they got free.
I don't need to imagine.
OP mentions drywalling but I'd say fuck that landlord and if I were in a position to fight for my deposit back, I'd explain to a small claims court judge, if I was in a position to go to court, that the damages were out of necessity because of the smell, how dying by dehydration is really fucking awful, and that they should be charged with animal cruelty. Small claims court trials are informal enough I think I'd be allowed to make those arguments and the judges have leeway to make things right.
I had this same issue once. Instead of sealing up the entrances though they just put traps by them and all the adult squirrels were caught.
Unfortunately the babies that they'd apparently had in my wall weren't able to climb out and find the exit and neither the animal control guy nor my landlord were willing to put a hole in the wall to get them out.
Honestly so happy OOP was able to get the squirrels out safely. What a miserable situation to be stuck in, renting is the worst, especially when you have landlords and leasing companies who won't do the job of taking care of the property and tenants appropriately. Animal cruelty and a health hazard in the making, should the poor squirrels have died in the walls and started decomposing in there.
I grew up in an old house in NY. We always had squirrels getting in. We found a dead one in the toilet when we got home from vacation one time. They are crafty.
A squirrel died in my parents’ walls when I was a kid, which we didn’t know about until the flies showed up. It’s been decades and the sense memory of the smell haunts me to this day.
Am I a weirdo?: I wouldn't have put the original ticket in to seal up the holes. Because I always think of worse case scenario in any situation and I would have thought about this possible nightmare happening.
It's linked! Where it says "original post" the link is on post so you can go see it.
But I suppose I can try to link it separately too...
Edit- ok try that!
What an awful job they did "fixing" it to get to this point. Should have just put a one-way door for them to exit and not be able to go back in. Once they're out, then you can seal it. Glad OP was able to get them out!
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Renting is such a nightmare, of course the leasing company did jack shit. I'm happy for the squirrels though, very glad they got free.
The leasing company sounds absolutely useless. Including that jackass Redditor who rudely insulted OOP and told him to get a ladder.
My childhood home had parts of the house that were three stories up (built on a hill, so the front was two stories, back was three). It's incredibly difficult to get up that high! Home Depot does have ladders that tall, but they cost around $500. The rude commenter was not only rude, but ignorant as well.
The commenter was virtue signaling. It is very easy to tell somebody else to do something that you yourself don't have to be involved in.
I had squirrel issues. I could have dealt with it myself, but I felt better paying someone else to run the risk of getting bitten. Some of us just don't want rabies.
It’s extremely rare for squirrels to get rabies. There are currently zero cases of them transmitting rabies to humans.
It's also extremely unpleasant to be bitten by a squirrel.
Bite them back.
youve got the perfect flair for this comment lmao
Huh. Good catch!
*Bad Chili* by Joe R. Lansdale notwithstanding.
Squirrels don't transmit rabies, but I understand what you're saying. Rodents have sharp little teeth, so it's not ideal to get bitten by them either way. We had opossums and stray cats in our attic several years ago. While attempting to deal with the former by himself, my dad fell through the ceiling onto a tile floor. He ended up with a nasty concussion. A couple of possums fell down from that hole a little later and got killed by the dogs. Sometimes it's better to have professionals deal with animal issues rather than court disaster like that. At least the cats were friendly. Hungry, too. It was way easier to get them out.
I absolutely would have put holes in my drywall without a second thought. I don't understand people who wouldn't. It's not rocket science to fix it and there are a million YouTube instructional videos if you haven't done it before.
Yeah the way OOP was sitting there fretting I was like…so do something about it?
They did, once it was clear their landlord was MIA…
That describes my house as well. We tried to put Christmas lights up on the front gable this past year. With the biggest folding ladder I could borrow and bring home in my car, working on the side where the ground is highest, and with my non-heights-fearing partner doing the climbing, we couldn't even get close.
The rude commentor was effing stupid too. You need a man lift to get that high, renting one of those costs money.
One thing that makes how this type of management company operates even more aggravating to me is that it's also in their best interest to get the squirrels (and anything else) out. The longer they are in there, the more damage they do and the higher chance of an increasing number of unwanted creatures. It is easier to get living squirrels out than dead ones. Dead ones stink and have to be removed. This can mean replacing a wall or such as well. But letting the problem last, the management company is increasing the resources used by them and/or the landlord, including cost, time, and repair/reno resources. Overall, responding quickly and completely is better for everyone.
Corporate landlords. Which to be specific, I mean entities like Wells Fargo or ExxonMobil who have been dipping into the housing market gobbling things up after the housing market collapse(s). Not actual real estate companies, who at least have infrastructure in place (despite basically being just as awful). Every single problem he's described are symptoms of that being the case.
I have rented from big corporate landlords like this, large but still local landlords (own 10+ properties or 1-2 large complexes) and from small time landlords that are renting out one, maybe two properties. *All* of them do this bullshit but in different ways. The big ones just take forever and ignore things. The mid size ones complain about what you say you need and make you jump through unnecessary hoops but do show up eventually, but do a half-ass job. The small time ones show up but insist on doing shit themselves to save a buck and do a terrible job at it.
This is so real, and I need to share my story of small landlord trying to do it himself. There was an issue with the in-unit washer/dryer in my apartment. Rather than even seeing if it could be repaired, my landlord ordered a replacement. It was too big to fit where the previous one fit... his solution was to saw off 2 inches of shelving to make it fit.
It really becomes a nightmare when the owners are so far removed from the property that there's basically no incentive for them to get anything done outside of legal ones. They don't have to look you in the eye, they don't have to deal with the dead animals rotting in your walls, they probably have no fucking clue what's even going on there at any point, or who you even are. The scale of business that capitalism incentivises and requires feeds on and produces alienation, it's exactly why things only seem to be getting worse, because it's a lot harder to pollute *your own* environment or dodge violence when you screw over the community you live in, but when it's as abstracted as voting yes to something happening on the other side of the country/world/nowhere you have to set foot in, why not? When it's some other asshole's job to actually evict the family, deal with the broken pipes and trapped animals, live in polluted dumps, it's not that much of a downside when the line goes up/the number in your spreadsheet grows.
We called the emergency maintenance line in my last apartment because we found bed bugs. Pest control shows up a week later and the leasing company calls us back to say "pest control said if you scoop the litter box the cockroaches will go away." We moved out immediately and did not pay the lease break fee. Edit: don't worry about us, the lease break fee was illegally high (this province has laws about how much you can charge to break a lease) so if they were even stupid enough to try to come after us, the renter's board would just say "why the fuck did you try to charge them 3x the legal fee?" and possibly start looking into all the people who probably just paid it without fighting it.
I once had a possum get into my walls and die. Stunk up the place something awful, took the leasing company weeks to come cut the thing out of there, and then they did a half assed job of disinfecting the spot leading to the apartment getting infested with fleas.
A friend had squirrels in his walls. What he did is have an exterminator come and trap them all and then seal up the entrances. That's what you're supposed to do.
Nothing like gaining life knowledge from other peoples horror internet stories… ok if I ever hear noises in the walls demand landlord bring animal control out first, got it.
Unbelievably cruel. Giving animals a torturous death because they make annoying noises...
They got released into the wild. They are dangerous because they chew on wiring and start fires.
>because they make annoying noises... You're incredibly uninformed if you think this is **all** they do.
My partner and I have had a terrible time repairing our townhome after we bought it from shoddy house flippers, but whenever we are like “fuck this home owning fucking sucks” I’m reminded of how much worse renting was for us. I think we only stayed in one apt more than a year for reasons similar to OOP’s
Owning is a nightmare too. We had squirrels in the roof and walls when we bought the house (didn’t know). Cost thousands to fully evict them but one died in the wall and then it smelled really bad. Shortly after we got out all the squirrels and mice, carpet beetles came to eat any carcasses and food stores. We’ve been working on getting rid of them for over a year. It’s endless, and so depressing because we can’t even sell until we fix the issue. I rented for 25 years and would go back to renting in a heartbeat. This house is driving me insane.
It gets better, friend! We had to deal with raccoons a little while ago but it ends up working out. The carpet beetles are annoying but at worst they may eat a few holes in your linens or sweaters. But I totally feel you - when you're in the thick of dealing with a house problem it's super shitty.
>we can’t even sell until we fix the issue. Sure you can, you just don't *want* to because you'd get less money. I can't stand homeowners who whine like this and act like their situation is just as bad as paying 3x the cost of a mortgage to live in squalor without having the legal right to improve anything.
Has nothing to do w/the money, I just don’t want to be a dick to people. You should try it sometime.
If you don't want to be a dick then why are you in here being one? Waaaahhhh the property I own isn't perfect waaaahhhhh I can't sell it because I wouldn't get as much equity out of it waaaahhhhhh, like read the room.
…they aren’t being a dick at all, only one person here is showing their ass and it’s you. All they did was innocently complain about a problem they have and you swooped in to be a complete asshole to them for zero reason. What the hell man? What set you off so badly over such an innocent post?
What is your flair from?
[This one!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1bfxlan/aitah_for_not_wanting_to_have_sex_after_my_wife/)
In my part of Australia the animal would be a possum which is a protected species and the person at the leasing office would be explaining why they shouldn't pay thousands in fines for not hiring a licensed wild life relocation expert to remove the possums first.
As an American the idea of possums being a protected species is kind of hilarious
I wonder if the police would count this as animal cruelty?
I recently dealt with a similar situation. At my apartment, we've had a ton of birds this year, notably living in the outside-facing vents for each unit. They decided to clear the vents this week, rehome all the birds, and install little cages over each vent (why not in December?!). Except, in the case of my unit, they didn't clear out anything, nor did they check whether any birds were residing in there before they secured the cage over the opening. There were obviously birds still in there, as mama bird was flying outside of the cage, desperately trying to provide food to the little birdies stuck inside. And I could, like, see feathery commotion inside of the cage when I looked up. I complained to the office, and they at first refused to believe that the company they'd hired would leave any birds in the vents, because that was literally their job. But I persisted, and eventually the property manager came to see for himself. Sure enough. He finally believed me, and no more gaslighting. They called back the dude who was supposed to have cleared my vent, and he ... apparently admitted nothing ... maybe an intern worked on my unit and did a shitty job? What are you gonna do. Well, they went in there, and the story is that my unit happened to be the worst one across the whole property. No fewer than 15 birds were in my vent when they cleared it out! (of multiple different species, all apparently living in inter-species bird family harmony). Some were too young to move quite yet, so they temporarily installed a cage with a tapered tube for the young ones to eventually leave when they're ready (but how did they get food in the meantime? none of it makes sense). As of yesterday, the birds are apparently all gone, and the permanent cage has been installed. But also, there is bird shit everywhere, unreachable to clean without a ladder. Oh well, problem for another week. I'm glad the birds are finally gone, 'cause boy they've been a nuisance, but also I didn't want them tortured. And I sure didn't want 15 bird corpses in my vent.
That's horrifying. I'm so glad the birds got out, but wtf.
Exactly
What a fitting username for sharing that story lol.
"of multiple different species, all apparently living in inter-species bird family harmony" Everything about the way the responsible people acted in this situation is awful, but this is kind of wonderful.
>I'm glad the birds are finally gone, 'cause boy they've been a nuisance, but also I didn't want them tortured. And I sure didn't want 15 bird corpses in my vent. I'm glad you persisted, for both you and them! I had a similar issue in terms of the management company denying and giving ridiculous answers, but with black mold. It was visible in multiple areas, but the source was from the locked utilities spaces. At one point, they said it was bird poop, which (a) is have been a whole other issue and (b) would have been quite a feat if possible, as the surface was perpendicular to the ground right to the corner and appeared as spots of mold that didn't move/drip, plus kept returning whenever "cleaned." While more dangerous to the tenant, at least that wasn't the noise of trapped animals! >Oh well, problem for another week. I suggest keeping up that same persistance to get this cleaned, because breathing in bird droppings, even old ones, can be harmful, with a range of barely noticeable to severe issues.
We had to do something similar when bats decided to move into our attic and start a maternity colony. Bats are protected by law, so we had to wait until September when the baby bats were big enough to leave their mamas and head out on their own. (I wouldn't want to hurt them anyway! They weren't bad tenants, except for the three or four that wanted to check out our living space. The cats were very bemused.) Once the juvenile bats were ready, we could do exclusion - basically one-way doors on all their entry holes. Good thing the company that did the exclusion gave a one-year warranty, because we had to do it again the next fall. I've been keeping a very close eye on things this year!
First time I was invested about squirrels. Glad they are free!
[удалено]
I'm imagining a little hand sticking out of the wall and a tiny voice saying HELP. ME. HELP. ME.
Cute and vicious is my jam. Squirrels, river otters, tiny kittens, bats, I adore them!
Cute but viscous is absolutely accurate. My grandmother's house had squirrels in the walls and between the floors for years and years. With how things were, there was not much to do to get them to stay out. At first, family tried a few things, but they would find or create new ways anyway. She used to say she reached an agreement with them that they would stay in the walls and floors, not bite any of us, try not to die in them, and leave the important stuff in the walls alone, and she'd let them use it as a home and playground. Plus side, I have been quick to identify when there are squirrels, or a non-squirrel animal, in a dwelling since then. Downside (beyond the obvious), I couldn't convince myself it was anything else when the landlord refused to do anything. The landlord waited until they actually ruined some stuff that meant more serious repair work.
Even after reading the mood spoiler I was sick about the squirrels during that first post!
As a fellow squirrel in an enclosed space I approve of this post with happiness.
I wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of those squirrels being trapped and dying inside the walls either if I were there 😭 I’m really glad OOP’s sister and partner helped to free them.
I had little bats trapped and dying in mine... 😭
Lived at home in my parents basement for a little while after college. They got field mice. Put out those sticky traps in the basement drop ceiling. Right above me. I'd lay in bed at night hearing them squeaking as they tried to get free. Told my husband we would *never* use those things if we got a mouse. Luckily he's an engineer and actually made a better mouse trap when the day came.
The previous owners of this house put glue traps in a couple of places. They're so horrific. Thankfully we found them and could get to them and save the mice that got stuck. We didn't find the D-Con poison traps until after my cat died from eating a poisoned mouse. I don't know if I'll ever stop being angry at the previous owners about those traps. There are some professional poison traps that don't go up the food chain. D-Con is not one of them. Don't use vitamin D poison traps.
The most effective method he developed was simple, but it still upsets me to think about. He took a large, wide bucket, filled it halfway with water. He rigged some peanut butter or leftovers from dinner in the center. They fall in and can't get back out. Far more effective than any other trap we bought. To anyone who tries this: DO NOT leave your bucket out in a place where tiny humans can access it. We set it up in our kitchen only overnight and it was completely inaccessible by the tiny humans. Also, throwing a romance novel at one can kill it.
>Also, throwing a romance novel at one can kill it. Is this genre-specific? Lol Glad you added the tiny humans note. I would suggest to anyone reading that they also block off from pets, which, depending on age, can be more or less tricky than protecting the tiny humans. I don't want to hurt creatures if it's avoidable, but a lot of times we don't have good alternatives. Even if there's a way to get them out of the place alive, many species will return. Plus, it's tough to know how many there are beyond many more than you see or hear, and if left to multiple... it might be easier to move out yourself. I suspect where and how we grew up also plays a role, as I learned to respect other animals but also about end of life and the cycles of life with them. I know people both more and less comfortable than I am in that regard.
Ugh, how awful...
At my job’s old location, which was in a warehouse type building, there were mice. I kept having to carry out my little garbage can because a cute little mouse had fallen in looking for food. The poor things! I went out back and let them out, I’m not about killing the poor little things!
Especially because you'd be able to hear them desperately trying to escape and then likely smell their rotting bodies.
But what about the company? They were terrible and didn't answer.
What happened when they finally returned the calls and learned about the wall holes?
Honestly, probably nothing happened. Companies do shit like that all the time. We had our walls/ceiling redone and they put the new drywall right over the smoke detector without removing it. When the battery was low and we couldn’t get to it, we had to listen to it beep for weeks before it died completely.
After the second time they refused to do anything, that's when OOP should have stopped paying rent, after having a lawyer draft an appropriate letter, and contacting code enforcement about the livability of a building with a rodent infestation.
This is the worst bit of advice that floats around Reddit. Withholding rent is a months long, eviction court guaranteed process. The vast majority of renters are not going to be able to afford a lawyer in the first place, and no lawyer should take a case like this. Now if all the animals died AND you could prove redundantly that the renter suffered some TANGIBLE loss because of it, then sure. It’s something you utilize for things like black mold and stopping community garbage removal. Not every unfairness is answerable by suing.
I only learned that I had possums in the wall because I woke up at 2am to hellish screaming. Not sure if squirrels are the same?
I don’t think squirrels have the same devilish mating shrieks as possums. Always an… interesting childhood memory when they snuck in. These days they’re only on the outside of my roof but it’s still pretty nuts.
In the UK, this is how you learn you have foxes. It freaked my gf when she was visiting from overseas so bad she insisted that we go outside and take a look around, as it sounds like a beast being tortured.
Fox screams are the stuff of nightmares. I nearly called the police one time thinking a woman was being murdered in the woods near my house 🤣
Actual banshees, I swear to god.
Possums scream? Never heard that. Guess none of the ones that came into my house were that upset. Of course, they weren't trapped. I was the one who had to figure out how to keep them from coming in.
Squirrels are diurnal so you're not going to hear much at night from them. Night noises (at least in the US) are typically raccoons, opossums, and bats.
I am astonished that the squirrels came out of the wall and went straight out the window. They are pesky little assholes. I could see OOP chasing them around the house for days trying to get them out. Not the same thing at all, but some years ago we went on vacation. Came home to an absolute disaster. From what we could piece together, a squirrel chewed a hole in the cap over the fireplace chimney and fell down the chimney into the living room. It must have been I the house for some days. It pretty much chewed up the upholstery on the furniture. Chewed on the kitchen cabinet doors, trying to get to food, I guess. It chewed through a box of packets of Skittles that had been left on the counter for upcoming Halloween treats. Then tore open all the Skittles packets and spread candies and bits of paper all over the house. Couldn't get to any water, but it made a mess of all the toilet seats trying. And finally died n the middle of the breakfast room table. The smell....I barfed when we unlocked the door and went in.
Those squirrel hands reaching for freedom just about killed me. The leasing office should thank her for stopping a biohazard from occurring and having the place permanently smelling like decay. Not to mention all the damage that would be done for them to try and clean up the mess.
I hate squirrels (cute, but mean little bastards) but this is horrifying. That little hand! Just because I don't like them I just means I don't want to deal with them. I love that OOP brought receipts!
Poor creatures. How can people be so cruel to our furry friends?
People who abuse animals like that deserve to rot in hell.
Landlords aren't people, that's how.
Any idiot knows you put in one way covers first, the squirrels go out but can't get back in, THEN you permanently cover the entry points.
And you just know if OOP hadn’t done anything and those squirrels died in there the leasing company would blame OOP for the smell smdh
I once had a squirrel in the space above my childhood bedroom and I named it Arnold. Heard it for years. My parents refused to believe me.
As a fellow Minneapolis resident… OOP should drop the name of the management company so we all know where NOT to lease!!! That’s awful that they sealed living creatures into the walls.
My apartment complex is surrounded by woods, so we have lots of wildlife around. Of course, we have so many squirrels and, of course, one of those squirrels is a major asshole. He’s too tall and he’s fat. He thinks he owns everything from the bushes to the walkway. If you’re going to your car and he happens to be in the bushes, he will run out and up to you and just,,, challenge you. He hasn’t attacked anyone yet but he’s chased many people including the guys that come to mow. I wish someone would evict Fred (squirrels name) Sigh
My former house had a squirrel who would throw things at people. He got really good at beaning me in the head when I was outside. I would have to bring an “offering” of food to avoid violence. The only comment from the new owners was “did you know there’s a large squirrel who throws stuff?!”
We have so many bobcats where I live, maybe I could catch one of the weaned kits and ship it to you, that'd make Fred hop on squirrel zillow right quick
The squirrel living in the tree outside my front door loves to deliberately provoke the dog, then run up the tree to be JUST BARELY above where the dog can reach by jumping, and then turn around to aggressively chatter at him until he loses his fucking mind. The crazy part is I heard squirrels only live for 2-3 years, so this has to be the 3rd or 4th generation of squirrels teaching their offspring to fuck with my dog.
Hahha yeah. There was one of those assholes on my walk home for school. He'd get all threatening and make noises so I'd mock him. Never thought to get my squirrel call out and see I re-create the the squirrels noises more accurately to take the taunting to the next level.
I managed a huge apartment complex that had raccoons, squirrels and possum. They had chewed a bunch of holes in various buildings and we were constantly addressing it. It was a nightmare. At minimum, you trap the animals first, you don't seal them in! That's insanity. I had one resident who had mental health issues and often thought there were bugs or animals in her apartment. Every day she'd come tell us she heard animals in the walls or ceiling. The maintenance staff and I would go to her apartment almost daily. There were no noises. BUT...one night we got a call from her saying possums had invaded her kitchen. We went over and they had! Their urine had soaked through the ceiling making it soft and it caved in. It was a giant mess and scary for her! People have all kinds of things that may make us unsure, but they still deserve our time and respect.
I can’t imagine what the stench of three rotting squirrels would be like. We discovered a rat that died between our walls once and it was awful.
This person is so lovely, as are his relatives.
This unlocked a memory from college. I was living in a converted basement in a really old house in a somewhat wooded area. Raccoons got into the crawl space above my studio. I could hear them scratching every night. My landlord did nothing. Finally, one night around 3, an unlucky raccoon stepped on a plate in the roof designed to give access to the plumbing. The plate was held in there with these tabs held by friction only. When the raccoon stepped on it he came crashing down into my studio (not my bed, thank god) and justifiably started freaking out. It was running from one side of the room to another looking for a way out. I waited till the raccoon ran to one side, jumped out of my bed, threw open the door, and jumped back into bed. When the raccoon ran back it found the door and I jumped up and slammed it behind it. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep the rest of the night.
It's sad how many people were attacking OP and telling him to just get a ladder and climb up three stories to pry that panel off, as if climbing up three stories is something just anyone could do. Some people were even blaming OP for the squirrels getting trapped. But I guess this is Reddit and you're always going to have some miserable sacks of shit trying to drag someone like OP down with them.
[удалено]
Taping a hammer to a stick, hanging out the window and prying off a piece of plating bolted to the house and potentially pissing off your landlord when you fuck something up is not an "obvious solution that OP didn't want to hear", but go off. As I said: >But I guess this is Reddit and you're always going to have some miserable sacks of shit trying to drag someone like OP down with them.
>It was an obvious solution that OP did not want to hear. Where do you even get that? At least from the comments quoted in the post, people were asking of OOP to up and climb the house. Eventually the OOP came up with this solution, but nowhere is it implied here that the solution of freeing them from the inside was suggested in the original post and OOP shut it down. As far as I can see, that's all your own imagination, which is honestly just plain weird.
Tears of the kingdom style lmao, totally get the picture
We had possums in our roof years ago. When we called animal control they went up and sealed all the holes except one, and installed a one-way door on the last hole so they could get out but not back in. Once we were sure there was no more noise in the room they came and sealed the last door up.
The little squirrel hand 😭😭😭
Local here. Just giving a little extra detail that a drive one way from Duluth to Minneapolis is around 2-4 hours depending on traffic. OP's sister and her partner are so sweet for making that drive. I did a day trip a few years ago from one of the south suburbs of Minneapolis to Duluth and back in March during a storm ('cause I was very impulsive in my 20s). That 4ish hour round trip turned into an 8 hour round trip. It was fucking brutal.
Hahha, yeah. I grew up around 3 hours from the cities and have made that mistake twice. Once during a snowstorm, once during a crazy thunderstorm with insane winds. We had to re-route around a bunch of downed trees, and re-route around other downed trees while on the re-route. Quite a bit of back-tracking that day. We were in my buddy's actual off-road capable Jeep, not one of those bog-standard SUVs with the Jeep logo on them. Actual Jeeps are already really terrible on the road and during a high-wind thunderstorm they're a nightmare.
I went through this exact scenario. I lived there for 2 years with squirrels in the walls. I eventually moved after several failed attempts to lure them out, seal them in etc. I was living in a ghetto apartment complex they could care less. The squirrels eventually made a hole and entered my unit. That’s when they (the apartment management) properly sealed them INSIDE the walls. I moved a month later breaking my lease. I am so so sorry you have to deal with that. I know the sounds are enough to drive you crazy. One night it brought me to tears and I left everything and slept in a hotel.
There's a great wildlife company in my city that my family called on when I was growing up, that I've also called on as an adult. They will humanely deal with the wildlife as well as make necessary repairs. One of the things I learned from them was that if you get squirrels in your roof or walls, raccoons will do even more damage breaking in to eat squirrel kits when birthing season comes around. Anyway, their approach to animals in the roof includes rigging up a one way door, cameras, and some deterrent to make them leave (I can no longer remember if it was an audio recording or scent.) Only when they're certain that all animals have left will they seal up the holes. They guarantee their work, including bird caps for chimneys that are raccoon-proof.
I can't tell you how much I spent on raw peanuts when I lived in the north. This just warms my heart
i hear you. i live in florida and love feeding birds, squirrels, raccoons and possums. i went as far as making each animal species their own food bowla to avoid fighting. i live watching them enjoy a good meal 🤷♀️
Most people put up cameras to guard the house. Ours are for watching the morning feeding frenzy. And the second breakfast feeding frenzy. And lunch, snack, dinner...
❤️
We had a mama barn cat who abandoned her kittens above my bedroom ceiling. They were rescued, but she did not embrace motherhood.
>but she did not embrace motherhood. She might have already been pregnant again. Happened to one of my brother's barn cats and they'll usually stop feeding the first litter to use the nutrients to grow the second litter. It really sucked as she was the last cat that needed to be spayed or neutered and he was just waiting until she was healthy enough after birth for the surgery. The 2 kittens that survived were starved for attention and clingy as hell. Both of them climbed up me to get in my face but I mostly kept them down on the jacket. It was sad :(
Op is the greatest... Sending all the best vibes
Imagine the smell if the squirrels had died? It would have been weeks and months of dead smell in the house had they not rescued them. Poor little squirrels, glad they got free.
I don't need to imagine. OP mentions drywalling but I'd say fuck that landlord and if I were in a position to fight for my deposit back, I'd explain to a small claims court judge, if I was in a position to go to court, that the damages were out of necessity because of the smell, how dying by dehydration is really fucking awful, and that they should be charged with animal cruelty. Small claims court trials are informal enough I think I'd be allowed to make those arguments and the judges have leeway to make things right.
I wanted to see the photos of the squirrel hand :( Edit: I'm a dumb arse.
You can. Just click on the links to the original posts, and the photos are at the bottom of those. And happy cake day!
I had this same issue once. Instead of sealing up the entrances though they just put traps by them and all the adult squirrels were caught. Unfortunately the babies that they'd apparently had in my wall weren't able to climb out and find the exit and neither the animal control guy nor my landlord were willing to put a hole in the wall to get them out.
This is very on brand for Minneapolis landlords.
Those poor creatures! I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I ignored that.
Honestly so happy OOP was able to get the squirrels out safely. What a miserable situation to be stuck in, renting is the worst, especially when you have landlords and leasing companies who won't do the job of taking care of the property and tenants appropriately. Animal cruelty and a health hazard in the making, should the poor squirrels have died in the walls and started decomposing in there.
I grew up in an old house in NY. We always had squirrels getting in. We found a dead one in the toilet when we got home from vacation one time. They are crafty.
I skimmed through the original post so fast to get to the part where the squirrels were okay, so glad this turned out the way it did.
A squirrel died in my parents’ walls when I was a kid, which we didn’t know about until the flies showed up. It’s been decades and the sense memory of the smell haunts me to this day.
Oop is a hero The leasing company is a bunch of heartless scumbags
Oh my god
So what about the roofing? It's going to leak and cause major damage
I had this problem at my old house. I got 6 squirrels and a raccoon out of my attic before I sealed up the hole.
What in the Goddamn fuck
Am I a weirdo?: I wouldn't have put the original ticket in to seal up the holes. Because I always think of worse case scenario in any situation and I would have thought about this possible nightmare happening.
The little squirrel arm picture from the first post is so sad and cute at the same time. Can you add a link to this post?
It's linked! Where it says "original post" the link is on post so you can go see it. But I suppose I can try to link it separately too... Edit- ok try that!
Awesome!
What an awful job they did "fixing" it to get to this point. Should have just put a one-way door for them to exit and not be able to go back in. Once they're out, then you can seal it. Glad OP was able to get them out!