It's a Mouse, a Squirrel...a Whale!

This story is actually rooted in the problems that our neighbor, Richard, is having with a squirrel infestation in his attic. Richard, a naturalist of sorts, has tried everything to keep the squirrels out of his attic -- ammonia, red pepper powder, blasting a radio in the corner where the squirrels enter his house, running a vacuum cleaner near their entrance, and on and on. His efforts have not been rewarded. In fact, I think that I saw his resident squirrel giving me "the bird" as I yelled at him while he wiggled his way into Richard's attic the other day. I knew that things must have reached a crisis point when I arrived home this week and heard the radio playing and saw red pepper smeared all over the outside of Richard's house.

What a bloody mess, no? Actually just red pepper powder. 
We began to wonder about our house.

Fast forward to last night. It was late. Neil and I both returned from separate trips to Maine around 11:30pm and I still had not used the bone stimulator for my daily treatment. So, we settled into the living room, ready to watch some TV via Netflix -- which we do with a computer connected via an HDMI cable to our TV. We had everything set up, but didn't hit "play" yet. Then we heard it coming from the wall in front of us, scratch, bump, scramble, scratch, bump, bang! Neil and I looked at each other. I had heard rodents before in our house in Saco and I said in an intense whisper, "It's a mouse! I know it....Oh, no, or maybe a squirrel, just like Richard!!" I suggested that Neil go listen in the bathroom - on the other side of the wall. Just as Neil approached the bathroom, the floor squeaked and the noise stopped. Assuming that we had scared them away, we resumed our activities. What else could we do? 

Five minutes later? The sound returned -- scratch, bump, scramble, scratch, bump, bump, bang! Neil grabbed a heavy rubber dog toy and threw it at the baseboard of our living room wall. Drake leaped out of a deep sleep and opted to lay in a more secure location in another room. The noise had stopped again. 

We gave up again and hit "play" on Netflix. About 10 minutes later I heard the distant noise of water or what sounded like someone fussing with a microphone. I paused Netflix and the noise continued. I said to Neil, "They're in the wires! The new plug behind the TV on the wall! Oh, man. We're going to have to call an electrician and see what damage they have done." Neil wasn't so sure. I had him unplug the HDMI cable from the TV and all of the noise stopped. Hmmm. That didn't make any sense. He plugged it back it and the noise was present, but faint and then disappeared all together. 

It was late. I was getting close to 1am. We were tired; it had been a long day. The mouse-squirrel problem didn't make any sense to me. Just before we wrapped things up for the night, I took a closer look at my computer and discovered that the live webcam for beluga whales was open! It wasn't a mouse or a squirrel after all. It was some kind of sea life bumping into the microphone for the webcam and making us think that we had a rodent infestation. We had a good chuckle about it and went to bed, happy to know that we wouldn't have to spread red pepper powder over the side of our house, too. 

A still shot from the beluga whale webcam on explore.org.

Comments

  1. Kathy in MDMarch 14, 2013 at 7:59 PM

    Ha!

    I feel lucky that our squirrel was not very persistent. We plugged the holes with heavy gauge chicken wire and set up a trap. He has not come back.

    ReplyDelete

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