etc.

I’ve had a couple of emails recently asking about the current state of infestation in the crazy little house. A few from friends, others from concerned readers. Thanks for your interest, note that this is not for the squeamish:

• The first chimney, the one with the original raccoon, is still sealed so we continue to assume that nothing big is living in it.

• The second chimney, the one I paid $175 to the pest people to remove a raccoon that wasn’t there, also has nothing big living in it. On the issue of the pest people, we’ve vowed not to use their services again on account of their blatant disregard for the real problem (ridding the crazy little house of critters period) because we have turned into their cash cow. We are the reason why they are going to have a bountiful Christmas this year. I blame it on profit motivation à la groveling capitalism, the mister blames it on sheer dishonesty, and neither of us are wrong I think. But, this is a topic for a whole other post.
• We occasionally hear scuttling in the ceiling above our bedroom, but it’s usually short-lived and not nearly as frantic as when we caught the squirrel climbing out of the forced air duct.
• We do get the occasional whiff of something faecal wafting through the vents in certain areas of the house. Since we don’t actually hear the offender at these times, it’s really hard to guess what it is and exactly where it is.
• Some solutions that have recently been considered include: having the ducts cleaned again (good), having the other defunct chimney cleaned (too expensive, no internal or external access), placing a radio tuned to talk-radio right into one of the offending vents (practical & affordable), simultaneous burning of many candles and scented oils at all times (implemented), calling the city’s Animal Services people in for a consultation (to-morrow), drawing up a charter and holding the inaugural meeting of the We Love Wildlife But Just Not In Our Homes Association of Toronto (interested stakeholders in our neighbourhood alone could make this work).

This page will be updated as we know more but for now suffice it to say that we aren’t receiving visitors until the problem is solved. You will be notified. Likely exuberantly.