They Don't Call Me Dr. Dolittle
I love creatures, great and small. I just do not love them in my house, Tyrant I am.

Following is the tale of a furry tailed creature, trapped in my house, and the process of getting him out of my house.

Let me begin by saying that the demise of the squirrel was completely unintentional. No animals were intended to be harmed in the de-crittering of my house. No animals were further harmed in the re-telling of the story, as far as I know. If they were, or if they are in the future as this blog is read, it is not my fault and I did not do it. However, I do wish my sincerest condolences to the squirrel and his family. I was very sad that the squirrel expired before I could rescue it. But let this be a lesson learned to all creatures great and small: the tiny space underneath my furnace is probably not the best place to vacation.

Now, on with the story. It's long, but hopefully full of enough hi-jinx (suitable for most ages, with minimal graphic details) that it's worth the read.

When last you heard, I had a critter trapped underneath the furnace in my house. It was something, not sure what, but definitely anxious to get out. What it exactly it was, I did not know at the time that I heard it trying to claw its way to freedom. I just knew it was something other than myself, and as far as I knew, 'myself' was the only thing scheduled to be living in my house at this current time.

To recap before I get to the real recap, the critter kept me up all night. I had to go to work the next day. So I left the critter in the house, still safely tucked away behind the vent, and I proceeded to worry throughout the day at work. I feared what I would find when I returned home, and therefore spent the day trying to decide what to do about the critter situation.

My plan was this: arriving home after work, I would assess the situation of What Lies Beneath My Furnace. Once determining that the critter was essentially harmless, I planned to speak with it, encouraging it to leave from whence it came, on its own, peacefully. If that didn't work, my plan was to grab the following household items (lawnmower bag, electric screwdriver, hazmat suit, lead gloves, hockey mask, tranquilizer darts), then somehow carefully remove the vent cover while holding the bag over the gaping hole, coax the critter into the lawnmower bag (which I scientifically estimated was the exact same size as the opening to the vent, not allowing room for any escape out the side of the vent, thus missing the bag), and then escort both the bag and the critter into the out of doors, through my open back door, in a tossing sort of fashion. There would likely be a good bit of screaming involved throughout this process.

Plan B would occur if the critter did, in fact, make it out of the vent but not exactly into the bag. Plan B involved a lot more screaming and yelling and freaking out, followed by calling 911, Animal Control, and the National Guard.

These were my plans. I had diagrams, schematics, calculations, and elevations. I was serious.

I arrived home to a very quiet house. Eerily quiet, I must admit. The house seemed intact, everything where I left it. Including the critter, I would soon find out.

I turned on a few lights, and still heard nothing. Just as I got close to the furnace, it came to life. The furnace, that is. Perfect timing, so I could see if anything was still stirring underneath. Throughout the night before, every time the furnace came on, the critter came to life. I can't blame it. I'm sure it was (as our good friend Nelly would say) gettin' hot in there. Unable to take off all its clothes, the critter had no choice but to try and claw through the wall. A lot. Loudly.

But as the furnace came on, I still heard nothing. So I went for the flashlight to shine it into the vent, hoping to see what I could see. Maybe the critter left? Maybe there never was a critter? Maybe my prayers had been answered and the critter had decided to vacation elsewhere? These were the things I hoped for.

I bent down onto the floor and shined the light into the vent. After a minute or so, I wasn't sure I saw anything. Still. This is what happened the night before. Every time I shined the light into the vent, I saw nothing. The critter would hide, or disappear, or become invisible. This led me to believe it might have been an alien, able to resemble the wall or the floor or nothing at all. At times like these, you just can't be sure you aren't looking at an alien.

I shined the light through the vent again, and then I saw it. Something red and fluffy. I was pretty sure I hadn't left anything red and fluffy of my own in the vent on purpose, so my heart stopped for just a second as I realized I was probably looking at something attached to the critter.

Except, it wasn't moving.

Aack.

I couldn't see much from that angle, so I moved to the other wall where the other side of the vent would allow better viewing into the area underneath the furnace. I shined the light through the vent . . . and there it was.

Once I was able to catch my breath and get my hand to stop shaking, I realized I was looking into the opened (but non-moving eyes) of a very . . . dead . . . squirrel.

Double aack.

I'm pretty sure my heart stopped for a full minute or so. Plans A and B did not consider the possibility that whatever was living underneath my furnace might no longer be living when it was time to enact Plan A or B. A dead critter was not in the plan at all.

I thought for a minute, and wondered if the squirrel could just be pretending to be dead, to fool me so that I would open the vent (without my gear) and let him roam freely about the house. He could, in fact, be a very clever squirrel. So, I banged on the vent. Loudly. And I discovered that no, in fact, this was a very dumb squirrel that crawled into my house, got himself stuck underneath my furnace, and then simply lost the will to live.

It didn't move at all. And . . . it creeped me out.

So, since the squirrel obviously wasn't going anywhere until I was good and ready to move it, I decided to leave the house for awhile to seek moral support. I went to be with friends, told them my tale of woe and critter, had them pray for me (since the squirrel didn't need the prayers anymore), and stayed away as long as I could before I knew I had to return to the House of Squirrel Carcass.

Aack.

Once again at home, I put myself in 'extraction' mode, and did my best to do what Sydney would do. Sydney Bristow, of course. From TV's Alias. Sydney often finds herself in tricky and interesting situations, with limited tools and options, being forced to survive only by her wits and abilities to manuever out of tight places.

My situation was essentially the same thing. Except instead of myself, I had to maneuver a squirrel out of a tight place. This was an extreme extraction, more so than any extraction in the history of Alias. I had a fresh-baked squirrel that wasn't getting any closer to being outside on its own. It was time for Operation Squirrel-Out.

First, I needed to suit up. I put on my nastiest sweatpants and a sweatshirt, the coat I wore through Russia several years ago, my yard gloves, and a hat. It was cold outside, true. But more than fighting the cold, I didn't want any squirrel funk anywhere near my skin.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Once completely covered from head to toe, I considered my resources and gathered what I had to accomplish the task. Since the house didn't come with any specific Squirrel Removal Tools, I had to improvise. I grabbed a variety of shovels, ranging in sizes- three shovels in all. I grabbed a box of plastic bags, my electric screwdriver, a long poking device, and a bucket. Surely these items would thoroughly extract the squirrel from my home.

I carried everything to the site of the squirrel, laying out a careful arrangement of plastic bags onto the floor. I also layered the bucket with several plastic bags, as I intend to keep the bucket and not throw it out with the squirrel. Any surface that could possibly come in contact with squirrel funk was carefully covered with plastic bags. About 108 in all, I imagine.

Then, I banged on the vent one more time to make sure the squirrel still didn't intend to spring to life. It didn't. So I removed the vent cover with the screwdriver . . . and came face to face with the little furry uninvited guest.

I almost threw up.

Not that it was gross looking, in any way. In fact, it looked quite peaceful, like it had just quit, or had laid down for a nap. It looked much like I'm sure it did when it was alive and happy, only now it was just laying on its side and not moving. When I was a kid, my uncle was into taxidermy, and had many a stuffed squirrel sitting around the house. He would have been proud. This Vent Squirrel seemed ready to go on my wall for display. . . . except that my house is a house of Non-Carcass, by design. All carcasses must be outside where I cannot see, smell, or know of them, by order of the queen of the house.

That's me.

So once the nausea and sorrow passed, as I realized I had an actual dead creature, once alive and full of nut-gathering life, now very dead in my home, I began to decide the best mode of extraction operation. The squirrel was a large squirrel, larger than I had estimated through the vent. The hole was probably large enough for the squirrel to fit through, but it would take some creative manuevering to get it through the hole, especially since I intended to not touch the thing with my gloved hands at any point during this operation. I was thankful that the squirrel had decided to quit near the hole, rather than far back underneath the furnace where Inspector Gadget arms would have been necessary to retrieve him.

I started with the long poking device- an old broom handle that was left behind by the previous owner of the house, and would likely be making its way to the trash soon after poking the squirrel. I carefully extended the device, and poked the squirrel. It didn't move, and in fact, just slid backwards a bit. Stiffly, I might add.

The nausea returned.

The big shovel was too big to fit in the hole, so I was left with two smaller shovels. I positioned the bucket near the hole, and grabbed the two small shovels. I intended to somewhat 'tong' the squirrel out of the hole, grabbing it between the two shovels, then deftly depositing it into the bucket with every ounce of skill one would imagine I'd have in a situation such as this. Taking a deep breath (fortunately nothing was smelling bad at this point), I reached into the hole with the shovels.

I attempted one lift, but realized this squirrel was actually kind of heavy. Squirrels, to me, seem cute and mostly made of fur. This squirrel probably weighed five pounds or so, which by most standards isn't heavy. But I was expecting to quickly tong and lift a pile of fuzz. It wasn't so easy as that. And it was still very, very stiff.

At this point, I wanted to bail. I wanted to call a boy and have him rescue me from the squirrel carcass. I didn't care if that made me a girlie girl. I just wanted the thing out of my house, and I don't need to prove anything to myself by taking care of this thing on my own.

But, after taking a moment to regroup, I reminded myself that I am a big girl now. I am a homeowner. This was just a test of my home-owning skills, to see if I'm really up for this trip. If I can remove a dead animal from inside my home, I can do anything. No boys on this one, ladies. I had to do this myself.

Unfortunately, it just couldn't be done with my eyes closed, as I would have preferred. It's just really weird to touch something that once moved and responded to touch (albeit touching it now with a shovel), and for it not to respond at all. I just don't like dead things.

But I forged ahead and eventually maneuvered the squirrel out of the hole . . . and onto the floor. Luckily I had enough plastic bags lining the floor to catch it even if I'd thrown it down the hall. But after a few more tries with the 'tong' shovels, I managed to flip it into the bucket and carry (ie: run) it outside. There, I added more plastic bags to the mix (thank goodness I'd recently stocked up on plastic bags from Wal-Mart), and tied the critter up in as much plastic as I thought would help it last til trash day, which is today. About a week after the extraction.

Aack.

So there you have it. I cleaned up the tools and plastic bags, burned my clothes (not really, but it was tempting), and tried to get the image of the squirrel out of my head. It's still haunting me. And I'm actually scared to take out the trash tonight, for fear of thousands of squirrels waiting in ambush for me to venture into the alley where they can exact their revenge on me for not returning their squirrel friend to them in the condition he was in when he got into the house.

Alive.

If any of you ever need any pointers on how to extract a squirrel from underneath a furnace, feel free to consult this blog and the method mentioned here.

Don't call me to help you with it. But please, learn from my experience.

C.T.