Part 2: Stains on the stucco

Over the next, oh, I don't know how many months, it became harder and harder to ignore the fact that one or more squirrels were living in that enclosed space. (I was sorry to think that we might not have given them enough time to get their babies to safety up there, if that was the case, but it had been hard to just leave the helpless things on the ground given the danger of a cat or a dog coming around.) A bit of broken woodwork afforded a visible opening to it, and from time to time we would hear them running up and down the stucco wall that led to it from the ground. Sometimes they even used the first-floor half-bathroom window in that wall to get a toehold as they raced up, so that a peaceful sit could be interrupted by a very surprising clattering.

What finally moved us to action was two things: One, some strongly colored brownish liquid was making its way down that nice cream-colored wall in greater and greater quantities; presumably rain was getting into the top of that inhabited space and dripping out the side or bottom after becoming infused with -- what? pee and poop? pee and poop and something from the nesting material? Two, a trusted advisor of ours, a friend who is in the construction business (and has in fact done some major work on this house) told us that we were asking for big trouble. He pointed out that if the squirrels were to find their way into the walls of the house and from there to, for example, the attic, and to start chewing on things electrical, then we could find the house burning down some day. But we forgot to ask him how to get in there.