hello, may I scream now?

It's been almost exactly two months since the dead squirrel on the walk.

I am *NOT* willing to deal with rodent problems every two months. I hate having to interact with small nondomesticated mammals.

and paying other people to deal with this is damn expensive.

The professional I was referred to doesn't do squirrels, and they said this sounded like squirrels since it was active during the day. The professional *they* referred me to said it could be baby rats instead, but unless I could startle them into making noises (other than the skittering around noises) we wouldn't really be able to tell what they are. If they come today and charge me $120 for an "inspection" and then tell me it's rats and they don't do rats I'm going to be pissed.

And if they do do rats or if it turns out to be squirrels...the first suggestion they made when I was on the phone with them yesterday was placing traps on the ground. On the ground? When I questioned that, they said, well, maybe we can find a ledge or something.

How many small mammals am I going to have to pay them to take away (at $60 a head) until they actually trap the ones that are making near-constant noises in my kitchen? Every five or ten mintutes there's another *skitter*, and it's making me really really jumpy.

(we're getting a kitten in September. Perhaps having *two* cats in the house again will help this issue...since the one we've got now is getting too old to be a threat...)

chimney update...

...it was a starling. It didn't chirp at all yesterday, but five minutes before the critter-catcher came, it started trilling away. The guy pried the cap off the old wood-burning-stove pipe (which I'd tried to do yesterday, but I found it quite impervious), fished out the bird, and let it go. Expensive lesson, but if it happens again, I'll be able to get the damn thing out myself. I can do birds. (and mice.) Rats and squirrels are a different game.

As it turns out, the chimney cap installed by the contractors that remodeled our house a year and a half ago is bunk. They couldn't find one of the right size, so they bought the next size up, which overhangs the chimney by quite a bit, so animals can just climb up under it...thoroughly missing the point of a cap in the first place. Sheesh! Unless we can get them to come back and fix it, that will be *another* expensive endeavor. Damn.