How Much Is A Squirrel's Life Worth?

Yesterday we awoke to some critter making noises in our fireplace while watching our two year old grandaughters. After grabbing a flashlight to look in behind the smoke covered glass I discovered a squirrel's blinking eyes calmly looking back at me. I can't be certain how long the little rodent was in there or how it even got down past the closed damper but there it was.

Turns out a few hours later he wasn't so calm after all. Not on his last leg either. He managed to rip out every piece of insulation I had between the fireplace insert and the brick. Despite my displeasure I found it hard to let the little jackass suffer. Having no resolution come to mind several hours later we decided to call the city's animal control. Apparently on Saturdays and Sundays animals don't need rescuing because nobody answered the phone. Besides it appears the city's animal control doesn't provide this service. I tend to think they only exist to fine and enforce code. Not a big help.

Time to kick it up a notch by calling local pest control services. Yeah well there ain't no way I'm going to pay $450 to save that rodent's ass. Neither $350 the next one we called wanted either. When you stop and think about it my last one hour visit to the doctor's office billed my insurance $250. Why would anyone waste the money and time to become an MD if they can earn this much moola simply buying a thick pair of gloves and a twenty dollar live bait trap? What the hell is wrong with this picture!

After looking at a bunch of how not to remove squirrels from a fireplace YouTube videos we decided to take yet one more crack at it. We called and found this guy around 2:00 pm who would rescue this creature's furry little ass for $150. He said he could come the next day. Wouldn't you know late in the afternoon around 4:30 pm the critter disappeared after his destructive tirade. No squirrel in the fireplace area. No more noises from the damper above either like before No nothing from that point forward. I don't know if this pest somehow impossibly managed to climb back up the chimney to escape or did he climb back up to the smoke shelf behind the damper and croak?

OK, so now it's the next morning. Still nothing. No noise. No reappearance what-so-ever. Frankly I could care less on removing the critter if he croaked. The whole point of spending the $150 was to save his furry little ass (because we are idiots that way).

So a little after 8:00 am, long before the scheduled 11:00 am appointment we called the main number back trying to cancel the appointment. Left a message the only way possible on the answering machine. Doesn't this guy call later in the day to say he was 20 minutes out. We explained the situation and he said he never got the message. I said we'd call him back tomorrow if the squirrel made another appearance. Although I told myself I'd be willing to pay a penalty if I had to for the squirrel chaser's inconvenience. Somehow I don't think it went over very well with him. From what I sensed by the tone of his voice he's pissed as hell with me.

This Went From A Rescue To A Recovery
I don't think I'm wrong not wanting to spend $150+ on what possibly might be a dead squirrel. I wonder how many others would be willing to spend even twenty bucks for an animal rescue like this in the first place.

Although this is the first time anything crawled down the chimney the wife is now on my case to get a chimney cap installed. Talk about a dilemma. Looks like I'm out a stack of loot no matter how this plays out. We only lit the damn thing three times in the 26 years we've been here. Yeah it do sure make the living room look pretty, but other then that it's useless.

Thanks too Mr. Squirrel for chewing up the wood on my window flower boxes, chasing the birds away at my feeder, shorting out the electric on the pole three times out back and continually digging up our flower pots. As you might have gathered by now I'm not your biggest fan.


One Final Story
The neighbor next to us once lit their fireplace and out came a squirrel on fire into their living room ending up with their three dogs chasing it room to room. Woo-ha!