Last night, we got double-whammied. First, the thunderstorms hit. Dogs freaking out, busting into bedrooms, panting, drooling, generally carrying on. Finally, the storms stopped and we were able to get to sleep. About 5 AM we heard some noises. Banging metal. Weird.

Here's how it went:

Jenn: What is that?!?!
Me: Not sure. (listens a little) I think it's the ducts.
Jenn: It's not the ducks!
Me: There's something in our DUCTS.
Jenn: Ohhhh, I thought you said DUCKS.

Noise continues. Clearly a critter in the ductwork. WTF.

The noise was gone by morning. No new sound all day, so we figured whatever it was went back out. How wrong we were. Around 10pm, one vent in the living room started popping up and a little squirrel head popped out. Great. Now what? My plan to simply open the vent and shoo the thing out the porch to freedom was smacked down. Fine, let's call the critter control guy.

Of course, by the time he came out, no more noise. We walked the house tapping on the ducts and trunk, to no avail. While the guy was out getting the trap and bait, I went down and tapped some more. Miraculously, I got a reply from our little friend, a *flying squirrel* who had wandered into an offshoot duct and ended up near a vent at the bottom of the basement wall.

The guy says at this point the most effective solution is to use the sticky pad, but I have to warn you, the little guy might not make it because I'll have to peel him off and he could lose skin, etc.  Whatever, just get him out so I can sleep tonight without a bunch of racket.

He pulls out this 11"x14" piece of super heavy-duty flypaper and puts it behind the vent. Now we wait. [Insert obligatory sales pitch about colonizing squirrels, inspections, etc. May be true but let's talk about that after you catch Ground Zero Squirrel.]

About 15 minutes later we checked on the squirrel, who wasn't budging, so the guy poked at it with a stick and made it run onto the pad. Got him.

Here's what our scared little guy looked like post-removal. Hope his peeling went well.