I was nervous the other day when I noticed a few gnawed holes in my garbage can in the backyard. My first thought was that we had rats. Eww!! We had rats in the neighborhood one summer several years ago, and though we’ve long since gotten rid of them, I am still wary of poking around near my fence. This time around, I have not spotted any rats. When they were here a few years ago, I saw them regularly. They never got into the house, thank goodness, but they chewed a hole straight through the bottom of our Rubbermaid garbage can to get to our trash….and left old diapers and such strewn around our backyard. Yuck.

So when I took the garbage out to be collected yesterday and saw this:

….I was not happy. I don’t know of any other animal that chews through thick plastic like that. Do you? There goes another garbage can. I think we should invest in metal next time.

So this morning, I was in my kitchen making candy for a couple of hours, and I had plenty of time to observe what was going on in my backyard. Guess what I saw? We have a few very large and apparently very hungry squirrels hanging out near our garbage cans. He knocked the lid off of the Brute (it’s empty inside), climbed into the recycle bin and chewed up a ball of aluminum foil (with food remnants on the inside), leaving pieces of foil everywhere, and sat staring at me, as if to say,

“Wanna make something of it?”
I remember when I thought that squirrels were cute.
That was before I lived in a place with a booming squirrel population. Apparently, they’re getting smarter. And growing bigger, stronger teeth. I’d better not find them in my house.

© 2008, Lolli. All rights reserved.

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