Party to the Squirrel Murders

It had to be sometime last month when I heard them in my office ceiling.  I wasn't sure what it was, but it definitely had feet.  With little claws.  Claws that would scratch against the duct work, lighting fixtures, and as time went on, attempt to lift the drop ceiling tiles.  (This always made me jump, as there was usually a period of silence preceded by movement in the corner of my eye, and a loud noise.)  I wasn't sure if it was of the critter or varmint variety, but everyone else seemed to think it was a squirrel, which makes sense.  Most college campuses in the area are havens for a large squirrel population, and ours is no different. 

My boss told me to call facilities, who would send the animal control folks they have a contract with.  In the past, they'd trap the squirrels and release them.  I hoped that part of the process would be finding their path entrance and sealing that, because if one found it, more would. 

Because of my hours, I've never been around when the animal control guy's been there.  On his first visit, he didn't spot any animals, but did see some droppings, so he left out some bait.  I suppose this was a method to prove there were animals in the active in the ceiling, and that I wasn't having any sort of waking auditory hallucinations.  (I wish work were that exciting.)  The next week I heard at least two animals, running back and forth, scratching against the noisiest things they could find.  I was convinced they would finally get enough leverage on one of the ceiling tiles to lift it all the way.  I was in the constant mental process of preparing myself for a face to face meeting from my cute but destructive visitors.

The next week when I came to work, I saw a mess of what looked to be pine needles, or seed shells, or some other dead plant product, along with some droppings, that had fallen between the crack and the ceiling, so I called facilities again.  And, again, I wasn't there when the guy came the next day to put in traps.  Except, this time, traps really meant poison that, according to the guy, the animals would eat there, then run off and die somewhere else, sometime later.  I wondered how you could be sure that the squirrel wouldn't die somewhere inside, but I figured that this guy was a pro and that he must have known something that I didn't.  Like, maybe squirrels like to go off into the woods before they die or something.

Last week was the first I noticed the silence in my ceiling.  It felt suddenly a bit more lonely, though a bit more sanitary as well.  I figured John and Jane Q Squirrel must have felt sick, run off into the woods, nuzzled up together, and expired, looking into eachother's beady little eyes.  Either that, or they suffered internal hemorrhaging and puked their foaming, bloody guts out.  Together.  I also hoped that, though I saw no maintenance take place and know it didn't happen, the entrance was found and sealed.  In the end, whatever happened to those poor creatures, happened in or near a vent, because now the entrance of the building smells of sweet, rotting cabbage.

Oops!