A Squirrel Infestation, a New Friend, and a Jacked Up Neck
Word of warning: never let a squirrel problem get out of hand. It can sneak up on you so gradually that you don’t realize how bad it is until massive damage is done.
A congregation of squirrels has been gathering on (and in) our porch for months. We’d see them on occasion scurrying around; they were so cute that at first we didn’t mind them.
But then we realized they were living inside our columns, which were completely open on top and hollow on the inside. This of course lead to scratches and chew marks everywhere. So we talked to Jack about it but didn’t prioritize this as a project for him. I don’t know… maybe their destruction was so gradual that we were blind to it?
But this weekend something clicked and I finally got fed up enough to tackle the problem.
This picture doesn’t do justice to how gross it was. I must’ve taken it after scrubbing their grime off.
So first we started with evicting them out their home. We used two different types of squirrel spray: an herbal one and a predator pee. And we basically poured them down into the columns to give them a day to escape.
Then the next day I started the clean-up and the close-up process. But my step ladder wasn’t quite tall enough, so I strained the heck out of my neck craning it upward to seal the top of the columns, clean them, and repaint them.
The thing is, Jack had a good permanent solution for it, but I couldn’t wait any longer. So I jerry rigged the dumbest thing to go on top.
You know those reusable eco-friendly grocery bags made of a tarp-like material? I covered the columns with that and a staple gun. And I spackled on top of it, then painted it.
This is before painting them. No idea if it’ll work. A neighbor told me there are probably dying babies inside the columns.
Great. 
And honestly even though they’re cleaned and painted, they still don’t look great if you really look closely. Those a-holes mangled the siding. They even chewed into random corners of our porch for funsies.
So while I was in the middle of all that, a guy drove by and asked if he could help. I told him I was almost finished but needed someone to power wash the house as thoroughly as possible. So he did that yesterday, and now he’s going to paint some ugly areas of our exterior. I’m grateful for anyone willing to get on a ladder and do hard labor because that’s not my favorite place to be.
Hot take: Maintaining a house is harder on the body than weight training. I need chiropractic care and a massage therapist and maybe a regular therapist for the dead babies inside my porch columns.