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Critter
Squirrels scratching in the attic? Groundhogs gobbling up the bird food? Who you gonna call? Mike Hurley.Date published: 4/4/2004 By LISA CHINN INTER SUN bakes into a black tarpaper roof. Mike Hurley and Larry Nibert have pushed past the lost tennis balls and scattered leaves that litter the top of a Fredericksburg building. The two men are perched on all fours, peering over opposite edges. Office workers inside have been rattled by scratching sounds coming from the attic, and Hurley and Nibert have been called in to catch the culprit--possibly a squirrel. They search for clues--claw marks, gnawed wood, animal hair--anything that might show them where the squirrel is getting in. They find nothing. Hurley heads back down to scour the structure at ground level: Solid brick. Sealed gutters. No entry points here. He winds around to the building's wooden back, skims past a prickly holly bush and skirts the poison ivy that wraps around a spindly tree. There, he finds what he's looking for--a hole no bigger than a golf ball, just large enough for a squirrel to squeeze through. Hurley signals to Nibert to fetch their co-worker. "This is where it gets fun," Nibert says. He grabs Tracy, a spry, 7-year-old Jack Russell terrier, specifically trained for the task at hand. Inside, the trio gains access to the attic, climbs its wooden steps and searches by the light of bare bulbs. Amid cardboard boxes and packed-away Christmas ornaments, they uncover a second clue--tiny, black droppings. Tracy's body quivers with excitement. She scurries across the dusty boards of the attic floor, plows beneath a pile of pink insulation and stuffs her nose in every nook and cranny. She finds nothing. It seems the squirrel in question has gone for now. But he'll be back. And so will they. Who ya gonna call?Chasing squirrels is just one of the services Mike Hurley offers through his business, ACS Wildlife Removal. The Spotsylvania County company strives to rid structures of the bats, snakes, skunks, possums and other varmints home- and business-owners love to hate. Hurley dares to go where others won't. He slinks into attics, basements and crawl spaces in search of the scratching, chewing, clawing creatures that lurk there. He takes some heat from animal activists for the work he does. But his customers don't complain.
Read more stories about Spotsylvania Date published: 4/4/2004
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