From the mouse who thinks your pantry is an all-you-can-eat buffet to the raccoons treating your garbage cans like Six Flags, your (un)welcome mat is often spread out for a wide array of furry or creepy guests.
How can you send the nuisances packing? Family First staff and writers share their firsthand experience
Cockroach Committee
Curious Critter: Cockroach
Penina Steinbruch
Cockroaches can live for over a month without food. (One reason why getting rid of them is so challenging.)
"There’s a scorpion in our room!” The frenzied screams were accompanied by loud pounding on my door. Abandoning my latest load of whites, I sprinted to greet the hysterical seminary girls huddled in front of my apartment. Again.
The joys of being an eim bayit don’t end with the setting of the sun.
But scorpions — for real? — weren’t part of my job description. Luckily, our home was also the residence of the local Cockroach Committee and they were committed to killing or trapping any living annoyance that invaded the campus dorms. Trustier than the local exterminator, and a lot cheaper, I called my pajama-clad six- and eight-year old sons from an engrossing game, and they led the swarm of terrified girls back to the offending area.
“It wasn’t a scorpion, Ima,” my eight-year-old reported loftily upon his return. “It was just another cockroach. They were all screaming, but we got rid of it in a second.”
Cockroaches, the ubiquitous “juk,” are a fact of life here in Israel. We spray, trap, put our food in containers — and at the dorm, my little boys took care of any issues that scuttled by until the exterminator was eventually called in, lugging his heavy artillery of poison, which he placed in every sewer around the campus. For the next day or so, the “jukim” were busy fleeing for their lives or turning into black heaps that we closed our eyes to and (with a shudder) swept away….
My original Cockroach Committee has grown up and moved on to bigger and better things, we’re living in a larger apartment, and I’m no longer the eim bayit — but we still see the occasional “juk.” With admirable, annoying tenacity, they continue to crawl back into our lives. It seems like some things just don’t go away. But whenever they’re around, my (big) boys, and their younger successors, are always happy to come to the rescue.
Bothersome Bunnyhop
Curious Critter: Rabbits
Ricky Boles
A rabbit’s teeth never stop growing, sometimes at the astonishing rate of three mm each week. Constant chewing wears down the enamel and keeps those teeth from taking over.
O
ur new home was everything we wanted, including the sprawling, velvety green lawn that was an open invitation for my kids to play.
But we quickly realized that the great outdoors had another charming feature.
“Look, there’s a bunny!” my son called excitedly, pointing to the furry ball streaking across our yard. “And another one!” There were lots of “other ones.” Every time I looked out of my windows, there was a bunny, hopping across the grass.
At first, we thought it was cute.
Until I noticed, toward the end of the summer, that my formerly beautiful lawn was starting to look like the cratered surface of a distant planet. Matted patches of dead yellow grass dotted bare pockmarks of churned-up dirt. Weeds popped up all over the place. I watched the bunnies nibbling on the grass, playing on it, flattening it, digging holes in the ground, and I knew that those rabbits were responsible for destroying my lawn.
But how do you get rid of bunnies?
We tried everything: traps and poison, stronger fencing and garlic spray. Nothing worked. Our yard remained stubbornly the playground of the fluffy. I was desperately searching for a solution when I stumbled on an interesting tidbit — when animals feel like there’s a predator around, they leave.
What eats bunny? I quickly typed. And that’s how I found myself drenching my property with a spray scented to mimic bear urine.
It was a mass exodus.
The bunnies left. We filled in holes. Seeded and fertilized. My beautiful lawn never did reach its former glory when its old owner Steve tended to it night and day, but it doesn’t put out a “no one lives here” sign, either.
And if the rabbits ever decide to return, we’re ready.
Fleeing the Flies
Curious Critter: Flies
Flies “taste” food with their feet, where they have taste receptors called chemosensillar.
I
knew Brian the Exterminator’s phone number by heart, he was on a first-name basis with my kids, and Walmart’s stock was rising due to the enormous quantity of flyswatters we kept buying.
It was a full-scale invasion, and as the defenders of our home, we were outnumbered, outflown, out of patience, and out of options. And I wanted those flies O-U-T.
It was at the beginning of June that I noticed the first flies.
“We have to keep the front door closed,” I lectured.
My kids remembered — most of the time. But the flies didn’t get the memo. They multiplied. Every day after camp, my kids would gleefully run around the house, equipped with personal flyswatters, in an exhilarating game of “Swat the Fly.” It became a hotly contested count as they vied for the championship. But when five kids claim to have killed 30 flies each — even allowing for some exaggeration — I realized that’s a lot of flies for one house.
We tried old-fashioned fly paper, which filled up at an alarming rate. We tried an “all-natural” spray that left our house smelling like a Chinese herbal store. And every meal was punctuated by swatting, squishing, and screaming.
Brian came. He came again. He thought a dead mouse was causing the mayhem, but he couldn’t find any. He thought it was our garbage. We stowed it in our garage, but the flies loyally stuck to our house. Brian was stumped.
Our redemption was unexpected, and it came from Jose, the landscaper. The vegetation around our house was overgrown, and we needed some lawn care. Jose arrived, looked at the overgrown plants that encircled our house, plucked a leaf, and sniffed.
“This plant is an invasive species,” he announced. “It doesn’t belong here. Smell that?” he thrust the leaf toward us. “It has a strong odor that attracts flies.”
Wait, what?
Jose and his crew cleared the area around the house, trimmed our bushes, and lopped some branches off our trees. Was I just imagining it, or were there already fewer flies zooming around my kitchen?
A few days later, it was official: The flies were leaving!
Within a week, not one fly was in the house.
We were left with enough boxes of flypaper and piles of flyswatters to open up a gemach. Give us a ring if you’re fleeing the flies.
There’s a What in the Where?
Curious Critter: Lizards
Rachel Newton
Lizards have the incredible ability to voluntarily detach their own tails when they feel threatened. This process is called autotomy — but it’s not permanent. A new tail grows back within a few weeks.
I
t was a calm and peaceful Sunday lunchtime in the Newton household. Eh, who am I kidding. It was a regular Sunday lunchtime at the zoo.
Doling out croutons (no, I will definitely not count them to see who got more!), deftly saving a cup of water from a strategically placed elbow, I was all eyes and ears on the mayhem.
So when my husband appeared and muttered something toward my approximate vicinity, I was unavailable to listen closely.
“Huh?” was my response.
Sidling closer, he bent toward me and whispered, “There’s a mumble mumble mumble.”
There’s a ketchup war going on and I’m meant to hear that?
“Can’t hear you!”
Casting a glance at the intrepid warriors, he hissed, “I don’t want the kids to hear!”
Ohhhhh.
I turned around, and he obligingly bent toward my ear again. “There’s a lizard in the cholent pot.”
I snorted.
“Don’t make fun of me. The cholent pot is still soaking in the sink because there was a burned patch that wouldn’t come off.”
He just looked at me and jutted his chin in the direction of the kitchen. Sigh. I glanced around, making sure there was nothing (else) likely to break in the next few minutes, and followed him.
“Okay, what’s really going on?”
My husband looked at me. “I’m being serious. There’s a lizard in the cholent pot.” I peeked into the sink. The pot was there, lid half off. I gingerly moved the lid an inch. A flash of something pale, and I slammed the lid closed.
Yep. He was being serious.
Whaaaaaa?
“There’s a lizard in my pot!”
Husband, arms folded. “I told you.”
We stood there looking at each other, trying not to laugh. So many questions. What is the protocol for disposing of a lizard when you live four flights up? How did it even get here? Why is it not dead from inhaling grease-remover??
Husband picked up the pot.
“Where are you going?”
“To throw it in the garbage.”
“Throw it...?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
Off Husband went, down four flights of stairs, holding a pot with the lid firmly closed. Arriving back a few minutes later, he told me that he had emptied the pot and its contents onto a patch of earth. Lizard, greasy water, and a stray barley landed on terra firma. Lizard took a few moments to recover from the shock, and then disappeared with a flick of its tail. (The greasy water and barley did not.)
It took me far more than a few moments to look at my cholent pot again.
The Bats in Bayswater
Curious Critters: Mosquitoes
Bashie Lisker
Mosquito activity increases by up to 500 percent during a full moon.
T
hey’re already there. I need to start with that. They’re already around you, lurking in the trees, hovering over you at night. You just don’t see them! And move aside dogs, because bats are man’s best friend.
Or woman’s, in this case.
I’m blessed to live in Bayswater, New York, right down the block from a bay where we get gorgeous skylines of NYC, occasional helicopter searches for missing people, and lots and lots and lots of mosquitos. If you have a lot of shrubbery, you’ve conceded your home to the mosquitos. If you cut it all down in a desperate attempt to battle the mosquitos, you’ve only just begun to fight.
I can handle the snakes in the leaves in the autumn. I can roll my eyes at the chickens crossing the road (in fact, to get to the other side) in the winter. I can even handle the nesting herons that come by each spring to make their mark on every car that parks under their tree. But the mosquitos… the mosquitos are my nemeses.
Did you know that the mosquito is responsible for more deaths each year than any other animal? One million deaths. (Second place is humans, causing 450,000 deaths a year.) Now, granted, that’s in places with a lot more malaria than Bayswater, but I think it’s safe to say that mosquitos are a menace that must be stopped.
That’s where the bats come in.
A single bat can eat up to a thousand mosquitos a night. One thousand! My hero. I was once climbing out of a swimming pool at dusk when a bat swooped down and snatched a mosquito just as it descended toward me. My hero. And bats mind their own business, don’t bite humans, and don’t leave my Sienna streaked in white filth.
It was a no-brainer to put a bat house up on the back of my house. It’s just a little rectangular metal box affixed to the siding. (Mine is black; in warmer climates, you’ll want to get a lighter-colored one.) And if you set it up, they will come. They’re already here, anyway.
And where sprays and gardening and moving across the world to somewhere very, very cold fails… the bats are here for you.
Sprayed by a Skunk
Curious Critter: Skunks
Adina Lover
Skunks do not experience traditional hibernation. Instead, they go into torpor: a shorter-term, lighter state of dormancy where their body temperature and metabolism are lowered.
I
live in fear of being sprayed by a skunk. Say, what? But it’s true.
I’ve dealt with more critters in my house than you want to know about. The very, very worst was the skunk that lived outside my dryer vent and sprayed right into it.
I learned not to turn the dryer on before I went to bed: nothing left there would be safe in case of a spritz. Of course, it happened only in the winter when it was too cold to open the windows, and the smell permeated the house for days. One time, I had to cancel guests because of it. They came anyway.
After one spray too many, we put a trap right under the vent. But my vent is on my neighbor’s side of the fence (long, irrelevant story). And my neighbor is an animal-lover. He was very concerned about an animal trap materializing right near his basement window. So concerned, he called the police. I am not making any of this up.
It was the winter, there was lots of snow on the ground, and our exterminator was able to track the prints. He moved the trap to another section of the yard, and that night, we caught a… raccoon.
Our next afternoon’s entertainment was watching the exterminator haul poor Roberta the Raccoon away. Two days later, he came back, thankfully, to do away with Sally the Skunk. (Did he get sprayed in the process? Ask me no questions.) He warned us that there could be more skunks nearby, and we were by no means safe, but baruch Hashem, things calmed down significantly after that.
But what really saved the situation was water damage in my neighbor’s basement the next season. He was forced to reinforce his foundation and decided to put in a patio. Skunks, apparently, like grass.
Still, every winter when I see animal prints in the snow on my porch and backyard, the fear of being sprayed comes flooding back. We’re stocked in tomato sauce.
There’s a Mouse in My House
Curious Critter: Mice
Sara Bonchek
Mice have ultrasonic hearing and can hear up to 90 kHz.
I
t started with noises in the wall.
I thought I was going mad. I mean, who thinks they hear noises in the wall?
Then one night, when I was up late cleaning the kitchen, a small, grey ball with a long, thin tail and a tiny, pert face shot past me and disappeared.
Okay, so I wasn’t going mad, but I definitely went hysterical and woke up my husband.
My husband trapped it and let it free in a nearby park the next day.
I thought we were done.
But no, I spotted another one. This time, my husband was at afternoon seder. I’d just edited an article about Rebbetzin Elyashiv — who decided not to interrupt her husband’s learning and accompany her to the hospital when her son needed emergency surgery — and decided to emulate her by not calling my husband and insisting he come home RIGHT NOW BECAUSE OH MY GOODNESS THERE’S A MOUSE IN MY HOUSE. I also withstood the temptation to stand on the table screeching until seder was over, mainly because I had a toddler and newborn to look after.
My husband eventually came to the rescue.
Then, on Shabbos, the one day of the week when you can’t put out a trap, I was curled up on the couch reading when another mouse dashed out from under it. This one didn’t disappear, it ran circles around the living room as if it owned the place, then ran up the bookcase.
There went my Shabbos shluff.
Motzaei Shabbos, a few minutes after we’d set up the trap, we heard the door of it snap shut and there was another little creature munching on the piece of Bamba we’d put inside, oblivious to the fact he was trapped.
We caught three more mice.
“Is your wife still living at home?” my husband’s friend jokingly asked him. “My wife would have moved into a hotel by now.”
We hired an exterminator. “What makes you think you have mice?” he asked me when he turned up at my door. “Noises in the walls? Did you see any droppings?”
“Umm, we caught five in a trap,” I told him.
“Five?” His thick, bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Lady, you don’t just have mice, you have an infestation!”
“No kidding,” I said, and told him about the mouse who spent Shabbos running along the furniture.
He laughed. “Don’t worry, the poison I’m going to put out makes them thirsty, and they’ll leave to look for water. Then I’ll search the house to find the holes or cracks they’re getting through and will seal them up. You won’t hear of them again,” he promised.
