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View Full Version : Critter visited my shop in an unusual way.....



Jay Jolliffe
02-19-2012, 8:25 PM
Friday I was working away & heard a noise that did sound right....thought something was in the wall. Well it wasn't. It was in my waste/vent pipe that went to the toilet, sink & shower....So I decided to run the water in the sink. Sound still there. Banged on the pipe, sound still there & moving. OK....I don't use the toilet to much & I guess the water evaporated. Decided to flush toilet & then there was splashing in the toilet. Odd that there would be splashing especially from my toilet. Open the cover after a few minutes and there was the biggest red squirrel I've ever seen. It looked like a small grey squirrel. Where I live there is only the red squirrels...Poor thing must of came in the vent pipe going through the roof. I'll guess I'll have to put some screen over it.

Bill Edwards(2)
02-20-2012, 10:38 AM
They certainly fall in the pest category sometimes.

I guess it could have been worse.... could have been a rat or snake.

Sam Murdoch
02-20-2012, 4:26 PM
This is funny to me as I had an almost similar experience. I call it "My Chimney Sweep" story. One winter morning the cat woke us up with a bunch of agitating at the vent stack coming up through a knee wall closet. I could hear a racket in there too and so rapped on the pipe pretty hard. I heard something fall the 2 stories to the basement. Damn! Down in the basement I locate more noise in the plumbing and came to the dim realization that there was no way to get whatever was out of there without a sawzall :eek:. At the time, I had no experience as a plumber and no money to hire one. I go out side to look at the roof to see where the stack came out and what I might be up against. Sure enough I saw one set of one way squirrel tracks through the newly fallen snow leading right to the vent stack.

Time for breakfast and some cogitatin'. Finally decided that I had to give the little critter a way out or I would be suffering the consequences of its untimely and not well considered last resting place. How to do that with 1-1/2" of snow on the roof and still falling? So – hauled out the ladder, climbed up with a shop broom and swept off the snow as far as I could reach. 2nd trip up the ladder with a bucket full of wood stove ash to spread all over roof between me and the stack. "That ought to keep me from slipping off, right?" 3rd trip up the ladder with 50' of 3/8" hemp rope. I actually lassoed the rope of the stack and used the rope to pull myself up (ever so gently) then took one end of the rope and dropped it into the stack, leaving enough of a loop to ease me "safely" off the roof. Into the shop for a while to start the work day, after about 25 minutes I came up, checked out the roof and was very happy to see a new set of tracks going from the stack to the opposite corner of the roof. Sure enough, sitting up in the eaves of the porch roof was the grimiest looking red squirrel free and busy with cleaning off his sullied fur. What a relief ;). As I was up on the roof with the stove ashes all around my feet and me standing at the plumbing vent stack hoisting a rope I could only imagine my neighbors driving by and worrying about poor Sam up there thinking he's cleaning his chimney. :D Still make me smile!

Jay Jolliffe
02-20-2012, 5:04 PM
That's a good story...Thanks

Clarence Miller
02-20-2012, 7:00 PM
I had a bird come up my toilet while I was on it. Thats scary stuff for an 8 year old

Sam Murdoch
02-20-2012, 7:30 PM
I had a bird come up my toilet while I was on it. Thats scary stuff for an 8 year old

Really? That's scary stuff for a 58 year old :eek: :D.

Dan Hintz
02-21-2012, 6:06 AM
Imagine how the bird feels!

Bill Edwards(2)
02-21-2012, 8:00 AM
:confused: I've heard the term "S**t Bird* :confused:

Wayne Hendrix
02-22-2012, 2:44 AM
If my wife ever sees this thread I will be out on the roof immediately putting screen over every vent pipe.

Clarence Miller
02-22-2012, 10:22 PM
If my wife ever sees this thread I will be out on the roof immediately putting screen over every vent pipe.
be sure to use wide mesh like chicken wire in cold temps regular screen collects frost from the "moisture" and will plug up the stack.

Bill Edwards(2)
02-23-2012, 7:54 AM
be sure to use wide mesh like chicken wire in cold temps regular screen collects frost from the "moisture" and will plug up the stack.

Really? Most of these critters don't have shoulders and I didn't read anything about

being invaded by a chicken.:D

Rod Sheridan
02-23-2012, 8:13 AM
I once had to take one of the turbo charger outlets off a 12 cylinder stationary engine to let a bird out. It had gone down the stack, through the muffler and was in the turbo.......It sure was black afterwards...LOL.................Rod.

Bill Edwards(2)
02-23-2012, 8:31 AM
Like this?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpWqEdSseD4

Larry Browning
02-23-2012, 11:26 AM
there was the biggest red squirrel I've ever seen. It looked like a small grey squirrel. Where I live there is only the red squirrels...
Hmmm. We have both red and grey squirrels here in Arkansas. The reds seem to mostly live in town while the greys live in the country. The reds here are much bigger than the greys. The reds are about the size of a small cat, while the greys are about the size of a guinea pig only skinny. Sounds like yours are just the opposite.
We finally gave up trying to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder. They are smart little beggers. No matter what we did they eventually found a way to get at the bird seed. Then they told all their friends about how to do it and poof, no more bird feed.
How did you get him out? Did he jump out of the toilet when you opened the lid? I can just see the mayhem that ensued when you open the lid.:eek:

Tim Howell
02-23-2012, 12:00 PM
Geez - I haven't heard that term ( S**t Bird) since the early 1950's. It was used by good ole Glenn Edwards in Greensboro NC. Any relation?

Bill Edwards(2)
02-23-2012, 12:07 PM
Geez - I haven't heard that term ( S**t Bird) since the early 1950's. It was used by good ole Glenn Edwards in Greensboro NC. Any relation?

We're all cousins......... you knew that Cousin Tim.:D

Jay Jolliffe
02-23-2012, 1:19 PM
No he drowned....I didn't want to open the lid with a pissed off critter in there so I went to get a screen & slide it over the seat & between the top but I was to late....thought off mouth to mouth then I thought naaaaaahh not me

Belinda Barfield
02-23-2012, 2:57 PM
No he drowned....I didn't want to open the lid with a pissed off critter in there so I went to get a screen & slide it over the seat & between the top but I was to late....thought off mouth to mouth then I thought naaaaaahh not me

I was doing just fine not knowing the rest of the story. I had images of rainbows and happy squirrels scattering pixie dust . . . and maybe a unicorn thrown in for good measure . . . now I'm just sad.

Sam Murdoch
02-23-2012, 3:04 PM
Hey Belinda - "my" red squirrel got free :D

Larry Browning
02-23-2012, 4:20 PM
No he drowned....I didn't want to open the lid with a pissed off critter in there so I went to get a screen & slide it over the seat & between the top but I was to late....thought off mouth to mouth then I thought naaaaaahh not me
Makes me think of a Seinfeld episode when George ran over a squirrel.