Squirrel 1, Me 0 4-26-15

A year ago, we moved into a home with mature fruit trees.  They have perfect flavorful fruit when allowed to ripen. Fat and Sloppy is a big fan of tree ripened fruit.

I fertilize and deep water the trees as instructed by my fertilizer bag.  I celebrate each baby fruit that will develop and ripen into the pride of my existence. I look forward to harvesting and eating fruit from my own trees. Unfortunately, Fat and Sloppy got zero fruit this season because the neighborhood squirrel ate my crop.  This brazen thief seems to steal fruit on a 24/7 basis.  Although he has dropped the peels on me from the branches of a pine tree, I never catch him in the act of running off with my fruit.  The cast off rinds and the discarded half eaten oranges, grapefruits, apples and avocados that litter my yard are silent testimony to an enemy whom I despise.

He watches me, studies me and knows my thoughts as I plot his demise.  He eats my fruit with impunity.  The squirrel enemy left a special brazen calling card last week by gnawing off part of the rubber gaskets around my car windows.  I love to keep peanuts in my car and I’m sure he saw them.  I can only imagine the mayhem he was planning once he got into my car.  Eating my window gaskets was his way of giving me the finger and letting me know that it was GAME ON.  He didn’t touch my wife’s car that was parked five feet away, she noted to me… with a satisfied smile.

I’ve obsessed about getting rid of squirrel for a year now, but its only been that, talk.  After the car attack, I had to do something.  I called Rick, from Western Exterminators, my guru for pest questions.  After describing my squirrel particulars to him, he said that trapping squirrels is difficult and he doesn’t do it anymore.  Rick said he could set the traps and charge me, but not to expect any success; “it would be a waste of money,” he said.  He recommended purchasing a pellet gun and waiting for Squirrel to show up and shoot him.

I liked the approach, but sensed possible problems associated with it.  My eight year old daughter and I recently watched American Sniper and I’m familiar with shooting to kill, but I’m not a trained marksman. We live on a busy street, so the thought of misfiring and blowing out someone’s car window and having the SWAT team show up at my house made Rick’s pellet gun idea good, but not great.  Finally, Rick suggested purchasing a squirrel trap.  He said to make sure to get the small one as the squirrel wouldn’t trigger the bigger trap and would take the bait and leave without being caught.

I felt victory over Squirrel was within reach.  For the the next three days, I relaxed by fantasizing about how Squirrel was soon going to be out of my life.  One of us was going to be king of this property and it was going to be me.  I drove to OSH hardware on LaBrea Blvd., for a small trap.  

I rarely shop, but when I do, I like to find things without customer assistance, so I refused the persistent help offers from the OSH staff.  After a half hour of not finding the trap, I ended up asking a salesman to show me where they were. He told me they were out of squirrel traps.  D-Day for squirrel would have to wait.  I was given the OSH phone number and told to check in with them every day until new traps arrived.

On returning home and exiting my car, I watched a well fed squirrel cork screw run up my palm tree and into the canopy of fronds at the top.  My first instinct was to go to Ebay and purchase a WW2 flame thrower and burn him out.  Ebay doesn’t sell flame throwers; I checked.  

My wife advised against the flame thrower due to the cost and potential jail time for setting my palm trees and house on fire (we have a wood shingle roof).  She did, however, suggest calling a tree trimmer to remove the overgrown fronds off the tops of the trees.  That would eliminate possible squirrel nests.  Cost of cleaning up the palm trees…$1,200.00. Now the squirrel stole my crop and cost me $1,200.00.

A few days later, the trap arrived and I excitedly drove to OSH to purchase it.  At $40, my squirrel removal costs keep adding up, but what can I do?  Those fruits are mine, Squirrel has no right to them.  I drove home with my new trap and went to Youtube to see the best way to set the trap.

I have small trash cans near where my wife parks for her convenience.  My wife tosses her half eaten sandwiches, starbucks coffee cups, candy wrappers and used diapers in those cans.  Squirrel thinks the trash can is his restaurant.  I noticed Squirrel pulled out a tuna sandwich and left it on the drive way recently.  He favors people food and it looked like I found a chink in his armor.

A few days later I set the small trap with a tuna sandwich in it near the trash cans.  It was a Sunday and I waited for our date with destiny.  

I checked the trap every half hour but Squirrel never showed up.  I was worried that he had outsmarted me and would never fall for the trap.  Two days later, on returning from work, I saw the trap door down and the cage partially rotated.  Squirrel went into the trap!  I finally have him!  As I cautiously walked around to see the trap, I was crestfallen to see it was empty.   No sandwich, no squirrel.