Have you got Squirrels in the Loft?

Last week, I was flabbergasted and somewhat disturbed when I went to give our bay tree on the balcony it’s morning daily watering to find there was very little left of our beautiful tree.    Nearly all of its’ healthy leaves and branches had simply disappeared.  I was in total disbelief, but how?  I asked myself .

Having studied the tree more carefully it looked as if the branches had been cut off sharply and neatly with gardening sheers.  Stranger still , none of the leaves or branches were left on the ground.  The culprit had even cleaned up!  How caring! The only conclusion I came to was that my next door neighbours  must have been responsible as they are the only people to have access to our third floor balcony from their balcony.   But why?  Had we done something to offend them?  Was the noise too loud at times? If they did have a problem why could they not come and talk to us about it rather than destroy our tree!!…. And there are plenty of other plants to destroy, how come they have not pulled the others to pieces and only picked on the tree?  None of it made sense.

The next couple of days I started to build up some resentment towards my neighbours for  carrying out, (or so I thought) , such a selfish, nasty, vindictive act.  Should I confront them or should I just leave it?

Luckily I decided to leave it and continued to water and nurture our bare bay tree in the hope the leaves would start growing again.  Then just the other evening the balcony door was open and Harvey, our Jack Russell Terrier went bounding out in full attack, barking and growling mode.  I followed him to find a grey squirrel sitting boldly on the balcony fence, teasingly staring back at him.

Ah ha, I get it now.   Having done a google search I discovered that the grey squirrel builds itself a nest the size of a football, made of twigs often with the leaves still attached. The female squirrel will have babies in June/July and  will build a nest.     I have now seen the secret squirrel , (or not so secret now), several times on our balcony and the Jack Russell is on Super Full Squirrel Alert these days,  and wonder where it’s nest is ?   Not in the loft I hope! 

If you live in Kensington and Chelsea and you are worried about Squirrels being in your loft,  speak to The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who run a pest control service.  Click here.

Or telephone:  0207 361 3002.