So....pests and nightmares

[alfreda89]

Sometimes I would hear flying squirrels on the roof during mating season. Sometimes, I now know I did have squirrels--grey squirrels, young ones, in the roof. Until a cat, or hawk, or the young bald eagle got them.

Sigh. Pest removal is no joke. Locals kept saying I could not have squirrels--I had no attic.

I have a crawl space.

Told the pest person they could do what they needed to, but no poison--I would not endanger predators. They rigged a one-way exit.

So now, no squirrels inside! ❤️🌸❤️🌺

(I will catch & release large spiders with a jar, or frogs(!), but cockroaches, flies, & bees ding my karma.)

"No squirrels in residence" does not remove a couple years of trauma, I have discovered.

Nightmare of youth--universe viewed through a spider web.
Nightmare of teens/college--dying & no one knew why.
Nightmare of early adulting--at a college final & never took the class.
Nightmare of mid-adulting--forgot to pay a major bill but no idea which one.
Nightmare of pandemic--sound of young squirrel gnawing on crawlspace floor, or chittering.

The good dreams become stories.
The bad ones told me things.

But they always arrived as metaphor.

Comments

[theoldone]

Squirrels in the attic are pests, but I had raccoons in my attic in Houston. When they needed a bigger opening, they just ripped through the roof (discovered when the laundry room ceiling collapsed).
I still have the college nightmare.
I can deeply sympathize. Sometimes I feel like a member of a prey species and the wolves are circling waiting for me to screw up.
At least you don't have ERCOT as a concern.

[alfreda89]

Actually, I do. Most of my possessions are still in Austin--heck, with the pandemic I could not even make the decision to transfer my car and DL to the healing zone. I am returning to Austin, if only to see cherished people and get my things.

The question is, can I and should I remain in TX? I always felt Austin was a place to fight for, the start of a new ideal for the state. But legislators--or their constituents--did not understand what creating a tech climate would do. They wanted cleaner industry, but they didn't want companies that would bring too many new ideas, peoples, culture to Texas.

Now they are alarmed, so they are pulling all this culture war crap to silence us and reiterate the worst of the old order. Letting the oligarchs make a fortune while making Texans pay for their greed is just par for the course. The energy crisis this week is just more of the same, a sad echo of what hit CA a decade ago. I thought Texas was smarter, but no. People will die for it.

Add in other recent decisions the Leg & Governor have made that I won't discuss in a public post, and I don't see it as a friendly environment for retirement & full time writing anymore. :(

But I still don't know where I will be going. I just don't think I can stay in this temporary sanctuary. And watching the housing market, I fear I can't go home to Austin.

[klwilliams]

Take a look at Reno, Nevada. I have friends going there who speak well of it.

[alfreda89]

Thanks for the suggestion, Karen. I'll put it on the list.

[madrobins]

In the house (which was a barn) in which I grew up, we had squirrels, bats, the odd snake, pigeons... the pigeon turned out to be particularly hard to get rid of. Eventually most of the normal routes for the pests (like unfinished siding) were cut off. And still they came.

Years later, when I had a tenant in the place, she asked if we could do something about the squirrels. I had to tell her that we could try... but that living in a barn meant living in a non-standard space that was not built to keep squirrels out. She sighed, and learned to put the perishables away.

[alfreda89]

Yes. I buy aluminum to encase things, slowly but steadily. Or glass. But this is a log cabin house in a forest.

To the animals, this just looks like a funny tree with a grumpy neighbor trying to eat them.

[ivy]

That's interesting; thanks for sharing. Now I'm thinking about the themes in mine.