When you think about how to make your home safe for children, you think about sharp corners, outlets and stairs. When you have a child with severe allergies, you look to your pantries, beauty products and cleaning supplies. Something that you may not think about are squirrels. Yeah, squirrels. Those cute little furry rodents carry all sorts of stuff, only to drop them all over the place.
We have this neighbor who feeds the squirrels. I don’t mean that he leaves a peanut or two out for the squirrels, but that he has made his entire backyard into a squirrel city. There are squirrel homes, cameras aimed into the squirrel homes and lights that is reminiscent of a red-light district. It is a bit much. His backyard is fenced, but some of the cameras and the tires and the houses and random junk meant to be a squirrel playground, loom over the fence line.
Unfortunately, we didn’t know that this odd zoo was a neighbor when we bought the place. Just like we didn’t know that peanuts and their shells carried over to our yard would be an issue for us until after we had Hank. We certainly didn’t know that squirrels don’t have pockets. Ok, we knew that, but like, seriously. They drop nearly everything; I am convinced that they are the reason why I have an abundance of wild raspberries.
When we realized what an issue the peanuts were, I did talk to the neighbor. I was met with a shrug.
Since then, I’ve heard stories from other neighbors that he has been feeding and providing squirrel love nests for at least 35 years. I guess every neighborhood has that *one* neighbor, right?
Because of our neighbor’s love of nature, we worked with Hank when he was younger to make sure that he knew what a peanut shell looked like and to not touch it. I take care to do checks in the yard to pick up any shells/nuts that have been carried over from one of his squirrel children.
It really just goes to show you, when you think that you have it all under control, a squirrel could change everything.