kris heard something shuffling around the ceiling of our “mud room” and, sure enough, upon further investigation of the back of the house it appears that a critter has destroyed a section of weather damaged wooden soffit and made made a home in the airspace of the flat roof above the room which, inconveniently, is inaccessible by any normal means.

i vaguely recall squirrels don’t like the smell of ammonia so i thought i’d try soaking some old socks in the nasty smelling stuff even though a googling seems inconclusive regarding it’s effect as an a deterrent. and i guess even if i put some sopping socks up in the hole, i’ll have a hard time knowing if any and all critters have vacated before patching up the holes.

so, how do i force the critter(s) out ( assuming the ammonia doesn’t work ) and guarantee they’re all gone before patching up the hold?

after removing the soffit i could clearly see that critter had chewed through the structural support leading to the airspace between the ceiling and the roof ( as you can see, there’s also some wiring from what was presumably an above-ground electrical line running from the house to the garage ). curiously, it doesn’t look like a new hole. regardless, it looks big enough for a squirrel but not large enough for a raccoon or an opossum.

assuming it’s not a large-ish animal that could do a lot of damage trying to get out, i suppose i could just cover up the hole and let it die slowly and inhumanely. but that doesn’t seem right.

what to do?