End of a Not-That-Long Era

Yes, dear readers, it is a sad day in the town of Schaumburg, IL. Maybe not for any of you, but believe me it certainly is for many four-legged, fluffy (and some not-so-fluffy) creatures in the ‘hood.

Squirreltopia is no more.

After many hours, nay, DAYS of internal conflict, I came to the realization that it is time to stop shelling out (HA! Get it? “shelling out?” HA!) peanuts to the scores of skwerls who have come from miles around for the free chow. There were several reasons behind my decision, but I think the biggest one was that lately there seem to have been an unnaturally high number of little tiny black buggies wandering aimlessly in the carpet by my balcony door. And though it may be unfair to blame said skwerls for this phenomena (actually, several women at Curves told me they too have seen more of these annoying yet harmless buggies around their homes lately as well – and they don’t feed skwerls), I am blaming them anyway. Besides, I’ve seen them scratching themselves furiously on more than one occasion. As far as I’m concerned, they must be scratching those buggies off themselves and onto the pretty green outdoor carpet I have on the floor of my balcony, thus giving them the opportunity to march across that carpet into my home. And although the cats find hours of amusement pawing at these tiny insects as they stroll along my living room floor, I am not amused at all. So that is big reason #1.

Big reason #2 is that our condo association basically threatened anyone who fed wild animals in any common areas. Financially threatened. Like “$50-per-offense” threatened. And although I’m not sure if “per offense” means per time they actually see you putting food out or per time they see wild animals eating food put out or ever per damn peanut, $50 in and of itself is way too much to pay to keep the skwerls happy. Actually, though I had initially reasoned that since my balcony isn’t a “common area” they had no right to fine me, it did eventually occur to me that some of those shells may actually fall down onto the grass below, which is a common area. Of course, the woman from the property management company hates my guts too, so she would probably fine me just to be a bitch.

Big reason #3 is because Lexie pointed out that we would probably save a lot of money if we stopped buying peanuts. Now, to a kid, $4.59 for a 5 lb bag of peanuts is a lot of money. To me, not so much. But when you figure that we’re pretty much going through 2-3 bags a week feeding Rusty and all his pals, even I have to admit those damn skwerls are taking a nice chunk of change out of my paycheck.

Sooooo, I have been keeping the balcony blinds closed and yesterday I leaf-sucker-upper-ed all the peanut shells and washed the outdoor chairs that the skwerls jumped on and rolled up the now-not-so-pretty green carpet (which, by the way, smelled strongly of skwerl pee – how rude!!) and then hosed down the entire balcony. (Side note – it really sucks having to run a garden hose through your living room to reach the balcony since the water spout is NOWHERE NEAR your balcony, but instead is in front of the building connected to yours… and now I have a puddle near the balcony doors…) Basically now my balcony looks like total crap. Because the paint is all peeling and there are still some shells wedged between the cracks in the wood. BUT – it is no longer Squirreltopia. (And supposedly the association is painting the balconies sometime this summer. Let’s just hope it is soon.)

My only fear is that the skwerls will get pissed off and start to try to get into my home to find out where their free food went. You know, since I already have duct tape over the one hole in the screen door from when I went away for a weekend. But I have a plan. I will train my cats to guard the door and attack any skwerls trying to gain entry. Ok, maybe I’ll just train Ace, since Baby is diabetic and too fat to catch a skwerl anyway.

So there you have it. The end of a not-that-long era. One I know my brother is glad to see go, since skwerls still scare him. And actually, after finding this website, I can almost see why…