Oh my, do I relate to this from my childhood. Our historic Cape Cod home was “rented” from the animals, and my mother trapped as a way of life, encountering every wild animal imaginable, from squirrels to skunks to bunnies to raccoons. The squirrels took up winter residence in our attic and left distinct trails once relocated. The raccoons lived under the house and had many spats with our cats. The skunks were known to let loose every time the screen door slammed, ugh! Mice would look at us from the family room bookshelves in the evening as we read voraciously. We learned to co-exist until trapping temporarily solved the problem! Good luck permanently solving the problem!
The farmhouse I grew up in had a similar cast of renters until my mom finally allowed our resident barn cats, Mittens and Bandit, to come inside for the winter. Just a few days of the cat brothers indoors and all our other visitors disappeared.
I feel you. Last year we had yellow jackets nest under our siding. You could hear them in the wall. It overlapped with our first year for mice in the house. They chewed through a hard plastic lid to ransack my seed collection and tore into my chocolate chips for baking. Needless to say, they had to go (especially with potential for carrying disease). We had to seal up our basement crawl spaces better.
Oh my, do I relate to this from my childhood. Our historic Cape Cod home was “rented” from the animals, and my mother trapped as a way of life, encountering every wild animal imaginable, from squirrels to skunks to bunnies to raccoons. The squirrels took up winter residence in our attic and left distinct trails once relocated. The raccoons lived under the house and had many spats with our cats. The skunks were known to let loose every time the screen door slammed, ugh! Mice would look at us from the family room bookshelves in the evening as we read voraciously. We learned to co-exist until trapping temporarily solved the problem! Good luck permanently solving the problem!
The farmhouse I grew up in had a similar cast of renters until my mom finally allowed our resident barn cats, Mittens and Bandit, to come inside for the winter. Just a few days of the cat brothers indoors and all our other visitors disappeared.
I feel a bit bad for enjoying this so much. I hope Bertha leaves you in peace soon.
If I didn’t laugh about it, I’d cry. We’ve had a pretty quiet day so far…fingers are crossed that Bertha has packed her bags!
I feel you. Last year we had yellow jackets nest under our siding. You could hear them in the wall. It overlapped with our first year for mice in the house. They chewed through a hard plastic lid to ransack my seed collection and tore into my chocolate chips for baking. Needless to say, they had to go (especially with potential for carrying disease). We had to seal up our basement crawl spaces better.
The yellowjackets would be terrifying to me. Yikes. I am so sorry you went through that!
Sealing up a space near our roof is definitely the first order of business once we are certain that Bertha has left for good.
Delightful post. I laughed out loud four times!