How to evict a squirrel in one easy step!

Well, we did it!  After more than a week of hearing a squirrel rummage around in a wall, Michael and I outsmarted the critter!  All during the past week, the squirrel proceeded to make a comfy nest in an outdoor "closet" space.  The weather did not permit us to do much about its presence other than bang on the interior wall.  This would quieten the squirrel for a few minutes but then the commotion would start again.  Since Hurricane Katrina, this space has been more or less neglected.  The hurricane had damaged it some so as a simple fix, it was merely blocked off and there was no easy access.  The squirrel, however, made its own door.  It had chewed a nice size hole in the eave of the roof.  To avoid being soaked by the icy rains of last week, Michael had just rushed out to poke a temporary patch over the hole.  Each day, the squirrel gnawed a new hole and each day, Michael applied a new patch.  This was beginning to get aggravating!  Today, though, the sun made an appearance!  Work was to be done..the squirrel had to be evicted!

Right after our morning coffee, Son and I headed out to tackle the job.  We had no idea what to expect.  To be truthful, I had forgotten just what all was in that space! Armed with a hammer and crowbar, Michael began to dismantle the closet.  One wall came down!  This was enough for us to groan with the sight!  Oh, my goodness!  How in the world was so much junk crammed in such a small space??? This closet was supposed to hold the gardening tools...ummm...yeah!  Right!  Well, we might as well just jump right in and get the job finished!  Item after item was gingerly extricated from the closet.  Then..we found evidence!  Aha!  I knew I heard gnawing!

That goofy critter had found an old garbage bag of Easter decorations from when the kids were tykes. Bag after bag of the old, plastic straw that at one time filled Easter baskets was chewed.  This was the squirrel's idea of a most perfect bedding material!  This was not MY idea of a fun cleanup.  Ewww!  Michael lifted the whole bag and tossed it out on the ground.  Ugh!  I poked the bag half expecting a rabid squirrel to come bounding out and up my pant leg.  I was definitely relieved to find that the bag contained no critters of any sort!  As matter of fact, we found no critter in the entire closet space!  After everything was emptied from the area, all we had managed to locate was the squirrel's nest.  The job was half finished..now, we had to sort through the mountain of clutter that was piled in the yard.  A quick decision to remove the entire closet from the outside wall of the house made it easier to toss about ninety percent of the junk.  That stuff was NOT coming back inside my house!  I did keep a few gardening tools which were found hanging far in the back of the closet.  Wow!  Imagine!  Actually, that was all that was supposed to be in there in the first place...gardening tools!  Not bags of Easter decorations..among the other million and one items of no apparent importance!  The place was clean!  Job well done!  The squirrel has been outsmarted....for now!  So..how do you remove a squirrel from a wall in one easy step?  You take down the wall around it!  Ugh!