An Intruder in my House
When I built my house, I build a complete studio unit on the first floor, with the purpose of renting it out to travelers and remote workers. One early Sunday morning, I heard a noise upstairs. In my sleep induced state, I didn’t think anything about it, since the person upstairs probably dropped something. However, my brain started slowly waking up and I jumped up with a start because I realized the tenant had vacated yesterday.
I didn’t immediately think that somebody had gone upstairs. But, I wondered if some animal was roaming around upstairs. I quickly ran up the stairs with my dog Venky. I entered the studio and found two miniature figurines broken on the floor. I then saw something move on the kitchen counter, out of the corner of my eye.
Who goes there?
I took the nearby broom in my hand and crept towards the kitchen counter. I hit the counter a few times to scare the animal out from its hiding space. After a few attempts, it jumped out from under the stove. It was a squirrel.
The squirrel, flew across the kitchen to the main door and out over the balcony onto the trees. Venky, frustrated, he did not catch the squirrel, kept watching the tree, hoping the little critter would come back.
As Venky kept himself busy, I walked around the studio apartment and wondered how the squirrel had gotten in, when everything was closed. The roof was a terra cotta tiled roof with beams running through. It was through one of these gaps in the beam that the smart little squirrel squeezed through. I poked around on the ceiling near the beams and discovered a huge nest that it had built.
I immediately called one of the workers who had built the house, to come help me fix the problem. After a few days, we put mesh around the gaps so there was no way the squirrel or any other critter, with the exception of lizards, could get in.
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Lizards, as everyone in India knows, are always running around houses. So, I wasn’t worried about them and they are not really a nuisance.
With my house now secured, I rested easily. But all was not fixed and I was about to find out soon.
A few days later, an electrician arrived to fix the ceiling fan in the studio on the first floor. It was running very slowly and needed fixing. When I came to check on the electrician’s progress, he informed me there was a squirrel running around the top of the ceiling and had built a nest in the corner on the far wall.
I was shocked. How did it get in? There was no possible way. The electrician told me, that all they need is a small gap and they will find a way in.
Between the terra cotta tiles and the top of the wall, there exists a centimetre gap in places. I know this because at night I can see the light through this gap from the outside. I couldn’t believe it had fit in through such a small gap and built its next home(nest) inside the hidden corners of the ceiling. So, again, I called the same person to come fix this new gap in the roof and hopefully there are no more.
Invasion of the Humans
Will I be surprised if I discover another critter running around again? Probably not. After all, I’m the one encroaching in their space in the forest. My house is located in a forest area, which once had hundreds of coconut, cashew, jackfruit, teak, almond and many other variety of trees.
As, we humans, move further into forests and farmlands, it is us who are encroaching on the homes of the wildlife that reside there. I wonder if in a few decades any of nature’s beautiful landscapes will be left alone or filled with houses. Houses, that remain empty for most of the year because most of these houses in forests are holiday homes. For example, the area where I live, more trees get cut down every year and new holiday houses come up.
Although, I moved here to get away from the city and to be next to nature, I am part of the problem because I too have destroyed the natural landscape and built a house. It is not a holiday home. It is my permanent place of residence, along with the squirrels, birds, snakes and countless other creatures, that I must learn to co-exist with because I am the intruder, not them.
