There was a man and a little boy in the condo across from mine yesterday! They put up a satellite dish. I think that is a good sign. The unit across from mine has been lived in for a total of about 11 months since I moved here 8 years ago. I guess the person who owns it tried to sell it years ago, but couldn't get what they thought it was worth, probably due to the foundation issue. So, for a long time that unit was on the waiting list to go on the rental market. Our HOA only allows a certain number of units to be leased at a time. So about 8 months ago, a small military family moved into it but only stayed for 6 months. The entire time they lived there, the realtors key box remained on the door.
Last fall, after the foundation was fixed, they fixed the place up, taking carpet out and putting wood floors in. They replaced Formica with granite and put fake wood blinds up. Even though the wood blinds are fake, they are still better than mine. They put these cool shelves under the staircase and staged the house and it looked great. Realtors brought a lot of people by and I was very hopeful that I would get permanent neighbors. But alas, the renting military family moved in for 6 months and then they left in April.
Now there has been a lot of activity over there for the last week or so. The key box is still on the front door. But last night the man and the little boy were over there for hours. I noticed them because he was letting the little boy help him with the satellite on the roof and the little boy couldn't have been more than 7 years old. It was scaring the bejeebers out of me. After it started getting dark, there were lights on and they were both inside. There is no furniture in there yet. But I think a satellite dish is a good sign that they might be moving in.
I really hope someone moves in there. I would like it best if it was someone like me to hang around with. But even if it is a family with a 7 year old who is allowed to walk on 2 story roofs, it is better than no one at all. The biggest reason I want someone to move in is that I want to go into the house and see what they have done to it since it is the same floor plan as mine.
In the amount of time I have lived here, I think more squirrels have lived in that house than humans. For a while squirrels were getting in that house like it was where they belonged. I kept looking above the door for an Alvin and the Chipmunks Inn sign. The little cage on the chimney was bent back and the squirrels were going in through that. I'm not sure how the squirrels bent that metal cage back. Maybe the papa squirrel had good pair of pliers or something.
The sad thing was that once they were in there for some reason they were unable to find their way back out. So, I would open my front door and see squirrels in the front windows clawing desperately at the window seals trying to get out. So, I would call the HOA who would contact the owner and they would do whatever they had to do to get the squirrels out. For a few weeks, several years ago, there was a white cat living in there. I guess the owner put the cat in the house to try and keep the squirrels out. It didn't work. One day I looked over there and in one window was a pretty white cat and in the other window there were two squirrels with their heads together conspiring of ways to torment the cat.
I could always tell when there were more squirrels in the house because normally the blinds are down and closed, but when squirrels are in residence, the blinds get askew at first. Then after a few days they are just twisted and tangled up in knots. On one occasion they tore them completely out of the window. I think that was a squirrel on a mission. The worst was always when the condo owner would give up and just decide to do nothing about it. Then, I would see the squirrels in there for several days becoming more and more desperate in the windows. After a week or so, I would start seeing flies in the windows instead of squirrels and that was never a good sign. I know that squirrels are just rodents with bushy tails. But I still think they are cute and don't like to see them die. So, I always got sad when I knew one had died in there. I quit being concerned about the condo owner when years went by and they never fixed that cage around the chimney that could keep the squirrels out. Seriously, if you are that careless, you deserve whatever havoc the squirrels create.
Last fall the lady who lives next door to the vacant condo left her windows open on a really nice day and went somewhere. I was sitting in my living room and watching football, it was a Sunday. I can see her front door and windows through my living room window. I glanced up and saw a squirrel in one of her downstairs windows that faces my house. Knowing that someone lives there, I got up and watched it for a few minutes, but I thought, maybe she was at home and was actively trying to get it out. So, I didn't want to annoy her by going over and knocking on the door and saying, "hey, did you know there is a squirrel in your house?" After about an hour of watching the squirrel move from window to window going downstairs and upstairs and seeing no human activity, I finally went over and knocked on the door.... Like the squirrel was going to answer it or something.
She is a flight attendant. So, I started worrying that she could be out of town or something and that squirrel was going to create havoc while she was away. I could see a hole in the screen of the upstairs window and thought the squirrel must have got in through that. I tried her front door to see if I could get in and maybe shoo the little guy back out through the window that he came in through but the door was naturally locked. After hours he finally went back to that window and squeezed back out through the hole in the screen. So, then I started thinking that while it was great that the squirrel got out, she was going to come home and not know what in the hell had happened to her house! So, I kept watching for her to return so that I could go over and tell her about the squirrel. Finally, just before I went to bed I wrote her a note explaining that there had been a squirrel in the house and he had gone back out through the same window he entered, but that he had probably made a mess in the house. I left the note on her garage door peg so that hopefully she would read it before walking into the house and being freaked out!
I talked to her a few days later and she said that if I hadn't left that note, she would have called the police when she got home because the house looked like it had been ransacked! She said that he shredded pillows and curtains, turned plants over and had gone through bags of chips and stuff that were left out on the counter. I was just glad that the squirrel got away. She has since replaced the screen that he got in through. For the last several months, I haven't seen many squirrels around. Maybe the vacant condo/squirrel death trap across from me has taken it's toll or perhaps the bobcat that is spotted around here periodically has a taste for squirrels. I hear they taste like chicken.
No comments:
Post a Comment