Southern Legitimacy Statement: The Pamlico River divides Beaufort County in North Carolina into north and south portions. I was created, birthed, and reared and made into who I am today on a black dirt farm on the north side of the Pamlico. I lived there until I left in a big hurry for college in Chapel Hill. I returned briefly to Beaufort County after college and then lived in Wilmington and Jacksonville before settling in Cary near my wife’s parents to raise our boys and be close to family. I have never lived outside of North Carolina.
The Squirrels Eat My Roof in January
A short story with a too long title
I didn’t know about squirrels and cedar shake roofs when we moved into the Williamsburg Manor subdivision. You see the homes here, although built in the late 1980’s are fashioned after structures in historic Williamsburg, Virginia, with certain features and finishes that are supposed to give anyone who admired them the instant colonial feels of 1950’s disneyesque historical memories. One of those features is that each home was constructed with a cedar shake roof and must be maintained in that condition. The homeowners association spends most of its energy and all its goodwill making sure that residents comply with an inordinate number of regulations and restrictions related to maintaining the proper historical ambiance of the cluster of forty-five houses. That is when it’s not busy going about collecting the considerable monthly association fees paid for the privilege of living in the community.
Anyway, back to the squirrels.
After we replaced the original cedar shake roof on our house, we heard squirrels scampering on the roof over our heads while we lay in our beds upstairs that winter. The thumping and playing didn’t seem to be much of an issue until the footsteps and movement settled into scratching and gnawing sounds. We later discovered small bits and pieces of our shakes on the back deck. We were soon able to predict with some certainty those mornings when it wasn’t raining or too cold and we would hear our friends on the rooftop. Reindeer it most assuredly was not that December.
My wife could sometimes go out on the deck and shoo them away that first January. That didn’t work after a while as they became accustomed to her rants and would just peek down at her from their second story perch on the roof’s edge and then go right back to eating away our roof and paying her no further mind. As the days passed and visits continued, the squirrels began to come back to one place each time they scampered up. They chewed vigorously in one or two of the same places on the edge of the roof when they showed themselves. This continued with some regularity until one morning in bed when she turned to me and reported that she believed the squirrels had found their way into our attic. She wasn’t having that! She went and pulled down the pull-down stairs attics access and crawled herself up into the attic.
Now I should say that I don’t know exactly what would have been my wife’s reaction if she had really come face-to-face with a squirrel in our attic that day. I don’t know what the squirrel’s reaction would have been either. Luckily, she saw no squirrels or evidence of squirrels in the attic but was now convinced that they were smart enough to have exited as they sensed her pulling down the screechy attic access. She called the wildlife technicians that very day and made an appointment to have them come out to professionally deal with our situation.
I’m not going to comment on these good old boys who showed up the next day calling themselves “technicians”. That’s a long short story for another day. What we did learn from these gentlemen was that squirrels or other wildlife management especially in the city is about removal and not extermination like you might do with a real rat or termite. In fact, we were told that it was illegal to kill the squirrels that were feasting on our roof and that they would have to be trapped and relocated. This sounds much like an FBI operation relative to a mob figure, but it is what the squirrel world has come to in these days of no-kill cute little furry animals just because they are invading your home. We agreed on the end goal of being rid of the squirrels from our address however, so these so-called technicians went to work.
The plan that was executed – that was the only thing that was executed – was to place a trap on our roof over the place where the guys had discovered a hole that the squirrels had chewed in the fascia boards at the edge of our roof. This hole seemed to allow them to nest in the area between our roof behind the fascia but not exactly in the attic yet. The wildlife guys had agreed with my wife after an inspection of the attic that no squirrels had managed to breach whatever barrier kept them from our attic. So, the thinking went, if they were in their hole they had to come out at some point and upon doing so would find themselves professionally trapped and then could be carted off to some squirrels preserve somewhere.
These good old boys with the trap set it in place and left it with plans to return every weekday to see what treasures we had captured. We didn’t ask about what would happen if the squirrel showed on the weekends. Our guess was that the little fella would just spend his weekend in the trap or maybe could crawl back in the nest hole and would somehow survive. We really didn’t have the squirrel’s survival as a top priority at this point. We had after all left it to the professionals.
We knew after hearing a commotion on the roof late Sunday afternoon that the plan had been a success. We could see the trap from the deck and our culprit unhappily squirming around in the trap. He wasn’t pleased with his situation but appeared unhurt. By Monday noon he was technicianally retrieved from the roof and released into the wild somewhere away from Williamsburg Manor according to what we were told. We had a handy man come out that same week to plug the hold in the fascia, repaint and then replace the cedar shakes. All should have been resolved and good to go.
If this was a traditionally length short story, that might be the end of the telling but other Januarys rolled around and our squirrel problems raised their little heads again from our rooftop.
Now I should say that we don’t know exactly why our wildlife troubles arise each January. A google or two on the subject leaves one thinking that maybe our squirrel friends are seeking a warm place to build a nest for spring babies. Perhaps they are seeking out nest building supplies for nests somewhere close by. We have seen squirrel nests in the woods not far away. Not knowing why doesn’t keep what’s happening from happening.
After our adventures that first year, we had some trees cut from near the house that we assumed the squirrels had used to drop down onto our roof. Those squirrels in subsequent Januarys did not get on our roof from jumping down from tree branches unless they were kin to Rocky himself – Rocky of the Rocky and Bullwinkle fame not the Boxer guy. Did I just age myself too much for this story?
Anyway, I want to make it clear that we did take what we thought were appropriate actions to prevent these varmints from invading our home again. We understood from some other wildlife professionals we have talked to, and I don’t know if these guys were technicians, exterminators or just what, but we did learn that squirrels can climb chimneys. I couldn’t do much about that. The Williamsburg Manor homeowner covenants certainly would not allow me to place barriers on the outside of my chimney to bloke squirrel passage up my chimney. They might be visible from the street and therefore not exactly compliant with the theme and historical nature of the subdivision. I guess they didn’t have squirrels in Williamsburg or more likely they handled them in a less humane way. I’ve eaten at the tavern in Williamsburg, but I didn’t try the squirrel stew.
In the winter after the first episode, the problem didn’t seem too bad. We heard some squirrels but not many and not frequently. They never seemed to park themselves on the roof for gnawing adventures. We didn’t see any evidence on the ground or on the deck that they had chewed any shakes. That January we learned about other methods that possibly might act as squirrel deterrents. Who knew that squirrels don’t like the manly smell of Irish Spring soap -original scent only? Try chopping those bars up into thirds or grating them into sudsy bits to spread around the deck and bottom of the chimney. Your hot tub time on the deck feels more like bathtime with that fresh soapy aroma in the air.
Who am I kidding? They didn’t have hot tubs in Williamsburg and hardly bathed so we aren’t allowed one on our deck. It’s not historically accurate for the community.
This last January, almost as regular as Santa and the Easter Bunny, we started hearing our friends on the roof again. This year we learned that squirrels don’t like capsaicin and we were told that scents like pepper and garlic are naturally unpleasant to a squirrel. We also were educated about sweet smells such as peppermint which is listed as one of the ten smells squirrels hate the most. Don’t you hate those online lists of silly things that take you to all the exotic places on the internet?
But we are desperate at this point, so we tried a little of it all.
I am going to relate one more part of this story and I swear I am going to then let this long short story end.
With the knowledge that vinegar was unpleasant to squirrels, my wife had to decide how best to apply the vinegar deterrent. She had tried throwing things at the squirrels on the roof in the past with little success. The roofline was just too high from the deck and my wife’s arm too weak. I didn’t say her aim was bad. I’m sure the problem was the lack of adequate strength. So how to get the vinegar on the roof so it could soak into the shakes and thereby scare off the squirrels became the assignment.
I haven’t mentioned the grandkids. Hi kids! Pop loves you!
With young grandchildren, grandparents are often in the toy sections of large, big box retail stores. My wife came home one day with something she had spied that we didn’t even know existed but was the answer to her problems. It was a super soaker type water gun with several tanks to hold the ammunition and a pump action that could address our arm strength problem by pumping up the pressure of the liquid in the tanks until it squirted forcefully out the end of that water gun. It can’t be called a water pistol at this size weapon!
So, there was nothing to do but to load that baby up with vinegar, apple cider type not white as we thought the brown vinegar might burn more or smell worse. Well, I will tell you that once she was loaded up, the gun not my wife, she was a quality accomplishment as my wife could stand on our deck and shoot all the vinegar she wanted up on the shakes. Her aim wasn’t fine-tuned but it didn’t matter as the roof was a pretty generous target. We hoped we had found our solution to our squirrel infestation.
We hadn’t, at least not a total solution. We had more squirrels chewing on those shakes come the next January. When the professionals came out to investigate, the squirrels hadn’t yet done much damage. There wasn’t much anyone could do until we had an identified hole or nesting place over which we could reasonably place a trap for our visitors. So, we applied our usual deterrents and I’ve grown fond of the smell of Irish Spring in the winter. Unlike the squirrels, I don’t mind the pepper or vinegar smells on the deck too much either. My jagged edge roof in the back isn’t exactly going to be deemed appropriate by the homeowners association folks should they come looking. I’m sure all the colonial shakes were new and even and untouched by real natural events.
And the squirrels? I don’t feed them or put anything in a bird feeder to tempt them but until they cross that line of getting inside my Williamsburg Manor home, I’m going to learn to live with them and enjoy watching them frolic and eat at my cedar shake roof each January.
