This Old House: Windows and Critters

I came home from work about three weeks ago--one of the windiest, chilliest days we'd had all winter. I walk in the door, and Jeremy comes trotting down the stairs.

"You just missed it!" he exclaims.
"What?" I'm thinking "grand" things, like maybe the gas company finally showed up, and we were going to have heat in a few rooms. . . Nope.
"The wind just blew the window out in your office! The whole thing crashed down to the ground!" Great. That was exactly what I was hoping for. Since little work has been done on this house in the past 30 or 40 years, most of the windows in our house, while still original, are in such bad shape that we can't even open them. This includes the window in my office that just fell out. Someone had been thoughtful enough to post a sticky note on this window saying, "Do not open. Window will fall out." Apparently, one should also not blow on the window or it will fall out too. So we tack up a piece of plywood over the now gaping window. But the plywood's not quite big enough, and there's still a nice sized gap--a gap big enough for any number of critters to get through. As I watch the dead leaves swirl across my office floor, I slowly made my way out to the "warmer" climes of the hallway and pull my office door shut. Since we have to order supplies to fix the window, I know it's going to be weeks before the plywood is gone.

Needless to say, every time I have to grab something out of my office over the next few weeks, I brace myself, waiting for birds to dive bomb me or squirrels and raccoons to launch an attack. After so long without the slightest sign of animals in my office, I guess I got a little sloppy and forgot to shut my office door.

Why it's me that always discovers these things, I have no idea. But I walk into the shop upstairs one morning to grab a tool for Jeremy, look in the shop, turn around, walk out, and ponder. I open the door, walk in, watch for a while, duck, then shut the door and go downstairs.

"Umm, Jeremy?"
"Yes?" He looks at me and waits.
"You know that segment on Sesame Street they used to do where one thing was different or didn't belong in the group?" I ask. Jeremy just looks at me quizzically. I have developed my own special way of delivering slightly bad news by asking seemingly innocuous questions. Like a few weeks ago, on an extremely cold night when we forgot to start the water dripping in the tub. I got up, turned on the water to take a shower, and nothing. I was only half awake, so I repeated this turning on and off process several times, each time somewhat perplexed by the lack of water. Of course, I knew what this meant, but how do you break the news to a still sleeping husband at 6 a.m.? I went back to the bedroom, tapped him gently, and said, "Jeremy?"
"What?" He asked groggily.
"What does it mean when no water comes out of the shower?" Several hours later after some high tech work (a hairdryer), we had running water again.

Which brings us back to the current dilemma.
"What?" Jeremy asks, looking confused and wondering why the heck I'm referencing Sesame Street.
"Well, it's sort of like that in your shop right now. There's something there that doesn't quite belong. I follow him as he trots up the stairs and opens the door. We both stand and watch the bird flying frantically through the room, banging against one window then another.
"Hmmm," he says as he shuts the door.

Now, a bird is, by far, the lesser of all "evils" that could get into our house. Squirrels running through the space between the floors at night is always fun, especially with dogs who are frustrated because they can't see or get to the squirrels. Then there was the upheaval in the kitchen the night Jeremy was trying to catch a mouse running amok. By the end of that little romp, everything was pulled off my counters, the stove was pulled out, cupboards were hanging open, and Jeremy was off to buy a mousetrap.

Yes, a bird was hardly a problem (although the little lizards are the easiest. They're slow and sluggish, so all you have to do is pick them off wherever they're perched--railings, moldings, walls--and set them outside. Most of the time, they don't even try to run). Except for one thing. We both remembered the last time a bird got into the house. Hours of Jeremy, followed by dogs, followed by cat, tromping up and down the downstairs hallway, up and down the stairs, up and down the upstairs hallway--basically, a heard of elephants, half of them barking, trailing a bird that could perch 12 feet up on the crown molding. Did Jeremy ever get the bird? No.

So, as we silently contemplated our options regarding the bird in the shop, we also came to an agreement that more coffee was in order. I really can't say how many cups of coffee it takes to come up with a plan to get rid of a bird, but. . . I also hate to admit what the plan was, since it was so obvious and easy. Jeremy simply opened the window, shut the door again, and the bird flew out. Fortunately, I think that also bumped up the priority for fixing my window when he started thinking about what might come in next. I now have a lovely new pane of glass in my windows, copper chains in place, so both the upper and lower sashes easily glide up and down with no chance of it falling out, and Jeremy has it sanded and stained with weather stripping in place to make it air tight. One window down, 32 more to go!