Help! There is an Elephant in my Attic!

First, let me say that there is no attic space in the Little Bayou House. The area was fixed up years ago as bedrooms for our boys. They loved being in the unique space filled with all sorts of nooks and crannies. The angles of the rooftop made their rooms be filled with angles of all sorts. To them it was a source of fascination to be able to look out the windows and feel as if they were sleeping in the treetops. Those treetops also were an easy escape route when they wanted to prowl around the hill unbeknownst to Mom! (Or at least they thought unbeknownst!) Little did they know that a mother can be in the deepest of sleep and still hear a stir from one of the kids much less a window opening and footsteps on the roof! Still, they loved their attic rooms...but this lack of attic space does present several problems...not the least of which is a lack of storage areas! I have no storage so everything is just out in view! Another problem...noises! The least of noise outside, resonates throughout the house.

The Little Bayou House at 2 AM as we were waging war on a marauding critter!

This all brings me to what started as a minor repair yesterday afternoon. Son has been hearing something rummaging around in between the roof and the ceiling..a tiny area of about only six inches deep in some places. The area does widen at one point to approximately the size of a breadbox..no..seriously! This breadbox-size space is directly above his bed so the noise sounded much like the stomping of a herd of elephants! Just how, may you ask, did a herd of elephants climb up to get in the small breadbox-size-attic? Good question! I have no clue! When sitting in the living room (which has no ceiling either), I could hear the random boink, boink, boink of little elephant feet as they scampered across the roof to the dormer window near Son's room. It was irritating to say the least..especially at night! Yesterday..we heard gnawing! Those elephants were gnawing their entrance hole to make it much larger! Egads! This would never work! So, he slipped out of his window onto the rooftop while I made a hasty exit out the front door! That is when we spied the elephant...err...squirrel! A grey squirrel skittered across the roof and made a flying leap to the oak tree! Aha! We would show that rascal! Since it was raining, Son made a temporary patch of the hole thus blocking the squirrel out of the house! And there you have it..end of story! Or was it???

The "elephant-sized" grey squirrel that was attacking the Little Bayou House at two o'clock in the morning!

About dark the squirrel started panicking. It could not get into the house. Its nest was in there and so was the warmth and dryness against the cold rain! The little squirrel scampered back and forth across the roof and finally started to gnaw a new hole! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! The noise sounded not unlike what I imagined a giant termite eating my house! I called upstairs to Son..."Get rid of that thing!" Out on the roof again, he went. The squirrel made a dash for the safety of the tree and Son made another temporary patch. This happened two more times with the last being at 2AM! Out in the middle of the night...in a fine misting rain...with two tiny flashlights...Son and I, again, created temporary patches. Finally, all was quiet! We succeeded! With it now being nigh on 3AM, he and I decided a pot of coffee and breakfast sounded good. No sleep for the weary! Bedtime came at nearly 5AM! What? This is usually the time that I am heading to the pier! I tried to sleep but could not...BOINK! BOINK! BOINK! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! AACCKKK!

By light of day, the squirrel looked a lot smaller and a lot cuter..but still was still quite noisy!

The saga continued on into the day, today, with several more attempts at temporary patches. The rain still fell and the squirrel still tried to enter the house. During the late afternoon, Son came into the kitchen...."Ummm, Mom. I think I am going to reopen the first hole." "WHAT??? Reopen that hole that we worked so hard to patch??? Are you nuts???" I very calmly remarked. (And that was a bit of sarcasm to the fullest...calmly....yeah..right!) Anyway, he explained that while sitting on his bed, he could hear baby squirrels squeaking in the tiny, breadbox-sized attic space. Baby squirrels? Aww...well, now that explains just why our elephant..um...Mama Squirrel wanted inside so desperately..her babies were trapped inside! What could I say but..."Sure..you better open that hole." It was just a matter of minutes before I heard the slight scritch, scritch, scritch as the sweet little Mama Squirrel tippy-toed her way across the rooftop to her cozy little nest full of sweet babies. ..............Ok Ok Just until those sweet babies are big enough to be evicted from the attic! And then that place will be fumigated and deloused and de-flea-ed and cleansed from top to bottom and the wires checked and the holes will all be patched with steel-squirrel-proof-burglar-bar-type patches and all trees will be cut away from the house and the entire roof will be lined with flypaper and ...........NO MORE ELEPHANTS MARCHING ACROSS OUR ROOFTOP OR TAKING UP RESIDENCE IN OUR TINY, BREAD-BOX SIZED ATTIC SPACE!