Creature Feature

(alternative title: things that go scratch in the walls)

The otherwise lazy three day weekend did have some excitement for K and I...

K was doing some work in our second bedroom/office on Saturday morning and I was out in the living room watching TV when he came out and told me he heard a dog running around upstairs. There were two small problems with this statement: 1)The people above us don't have a dog (well I guess they could have gotten one so that might not actually be a problem) and 2)All of the apartments are carpeted so if a dog was scratching around we probably wouldn't be able to hear it. We rarely can even hear people walking around, let alone dogs,

Upon a closer listen we determined that the scratching, skittering, banging noise was actually coming from the wall that separates our laundry room from the office. Yes, there was an animal of some kind trapped in our wall.

We decided to let it go for Saturday in the hopes that it (K thought bat, I thought rat) would go out the way it came in. Needless to say it didn't and on Sunday we called the apartment management office. Of course the maintenance guys aren't there on Sundays...so it would have to wait until Monday.

This morning I didn't hear anything so I assumed that our visitor had either escaped...or more likely..perished in the night.

But when the maintenance guys arrived and opened up our dryer vent they discovered that our creature was actually a bird, a very much alive bird. Apparently he had been drawn to the warmth of the dryer vent outside and went in. Unfortunately, neither K nor I were home to witness this rescue..so hopefully the bird was released back into the suburban wilds and this tale ended happily.

I would recommend our friend head south to get warm rather then entering potentially hazardous dryer vents in the future. I-95 is just a few miles away and goes straight to Miami.