The squirrel saga continues

Dead squirrels have been consuming our lives for the past couple of weeks. Long story short:

The squirrels chewed through wiring, an electrician came and found another dead squirrel (possibly electrocuted) and some extensive wiring damage that was an extreme fire hazard so we had to turn off the power to that part of the house until someone could come back and get the dead squirrel out and then the electrician could come back and fix the problem. It turned out that the squirrels had used almost all the insulation up there to build a nest, and it all had to be removed because it was in contact with dead squirrel/squirrel urine/squirrel feces. So then we had the area insulated with spray foam, as well as having a complete inspection of the outside of our house and a bunch of remediation work done to keep animals from getting in again. Somewhere during all of that we had a plumber come, and he believes that sewer gas is coming into our house through an air intake in the sewer vent,  because cutting a hole in the ceiling changed the airflow up there, and that the only way to solve the problem is to seal up the hole that was cut in the ceiling in order to get the dead squirrel.

 The smell has not gone away. So the big question is whether sealing up the hole will get rid of the smell. If it is sewer gas smell and the plumber is right, then that should fix the problem. If it isn’t, we may be sealing a dead squirrel into that space. But with the spray foam insulation that might have already happened. So we have someone coming on Tuesday to seal up the hole and we have our fingers crossed that this solves the problem.

Meanwhile, we have very cute children, which helps. It doesn’t so much help that one of them is getting four molars at one time, plus possibly other teeth, and the other one is trying to hold our attention 100% of the time and also testing a lot of limits. But generally they are both very likeable and enjoyable and in some ways are helping keep us sane in this crazy time.