The term “money pit” as it pertains to a new house is a very real thing. We moved into our house in 2009. On the day we closed, during our final walk through, we found out the garage door was broken and needed immediate repair that day. One week in, the fridge broke and needed replacing. But nothing could have prepared us for what was to come two weeks into living in our new home.

Adam has some pretty severe allergies and asthma. He’s particularly sensitive to animals – even if we’re in a house that used to have a cat, he has to leave almost immediately. So you can imagine our dismay when he started having breathing problems in our own house. We couldn’t understand what was triggering it. The scratchy throat. Difficulty breathing. Hives. He was literally becoming allergic to our house…and we had no idea why.

First we thought there may be moisture downstairs that was creating too much humidity and possibly even mold in the air. So Adam immediately ordered a super-charged de-humidifier, put it downstairs, and changed out the water twice daily. Unfortunately, it didn’t help.

Then the smell started.

It was one of those faint smells you can kind of sense in the background, but can’t quite make out where it’s coming from. But it’s always there. And gets worse every day.

Then the noises started at night. And that’s when we knew…there was some kind of animal in our walls (that Adam was allergic to). Awesome.

After some investigatory research (aka Adam opening up some holes in our walls), he discovered the source of the problem. It was squirrels. They were apparently getting in from a gap under our outside front stairs. And it made sense. During the day, you could literally see about twelve squirrels galavanting on our front yard. They were forming a colony around our house and making themselves a cozy home in our walls to sleep in every night.

So naturally, Adam called the exterminator. Turns out, getting rid of squirrels is a pretty big deal. And they charge $300 per squirrel for each one they catch. $300 EACH! Well, a $3,600 squirrel-catching-budget was not exactly in our move-in house fund. Adam asked the guy if he could cut us a deal. Would like 5 babies equal the cost of 1 adult? The guy told him to find a new exterminator.

So Adam decided to take matters into his own hands.

I was skeptical, to say the least. Not that I wanted to spend the money, but I also knew that Adam had absolutely no experience (1) catching squirrels; or (2) sealing squirrel passageways in the wall. And I wanted these squirrels out and never coming back. So I told him he had one week to see if he could figure it out. Then I was calling in the professionals. He assured me he would get it done.

First he tried using a pellet gun. I found him the next morning perched by our kitchen window, with his eye on the prize. I told him he could NOT take up hunting out of our kitchen window in the middle of our neighborhood. Plus it turns out that apparently pellet guns are illegal in the state of NJ without a permit, which he found out that same day. So he spent the night pacing the house, until the first morning light came…when he drove furiously to NY (where pellet guns are legal) and brought it to his family’s house. Of course he never told them he was coming, so they freaked out when they thought a grown man was breaking into their house at 6am.

Then he tried traps. The problem was, he would put one out, and then in the morning it would be gone. Like the entire trap would disappear. Turns out the live squirrel was just walking over to our neighbor’s yard (in the trap) and falling in their pool. He needed to up the ante.

So one day, I was gone for several hours. When I came back, this is how I found him…

There were so many questions. Why was he wearing a hazmat suit? Where did he even get one? What’s the deal with the golf club? And the most obvious…WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??

So it turns out when he opened up the walls, it was BAD. Like mounds and mounds of squirrel poop bad. They were apparently just having themselves a full-on poop party in our walls during the night while we slept. Wonderful. And according to his research, apparently squirrel poop can carry disease. So logically the only first step was for him to purchase a hazmat suit. Safety first!

I of course said, “You look ridiculous and I can’t believe you’re in a full blown hazmat suit.” And he said, “I know, it was really embarrassing when our neighbors saw me.” To which I responded, “YOU WENT OUT OF THE HOUSE LOOKING LIKE THIS?!?” Mind you, we had only been living there for two weeks, and had hardly even met most of our neighbors yet. Great. Now we were officially the crazies on the street.

To his credit though, I will say that in the end, he did succeed in cleaning it up, sealing it, and getting them out. He used cans of expandable foam that now fills every square inch of our inner wall space. You can even see hardened foam leaking out from the side of our house if the light shines just right.

He claims that the squirrels actually stood on the yard watching and screaming at him as he sealed up their secret hideaway – one in particular who he says was the ‘pack leader.’ Most of the squirrels eventually left to find another home somewhere else. Though he swears the leader remained behind, taunting him to this day…the same one that has been the source of demise to his garden. But that’s a story for another day. #Shmadum