Wire-chewing villians

Happy Sunday morning! We woke up to a gorgeous 29° morning, with a few hiccups already. Jennefer first noticed that our squirrel “friends” had completely chewed out a bulb on the Christmas lights that I had just put up on the deck railing last night. So we only got one good night out of those lights. 

 

When we went to pick up breakfast, I came out with the bag, and we realized they didn’t give us our green chili sauce, so I went back in to ask for it, feeling very proud of ourselves, that we caught that error. After we got home, we realized they gave us a Denver omelette, instead of our usual green chili omelette, which was a deal-breaker, since Jennefer doesn’t eat pork. So we called them, and drove back to pick up “the right” omelette. Come to find out, I must have ordered the wrong omelette through their app, since the original receipt says Denver omelette on it. Oops! I called them to apologize, and to offer to pay for the replacement omelet, but they’re such good folks, they wouldn’t have it. 

 

After we got home again, Jennefer caught the squirrels in the act of chewing on the wire again, and noticed they had cut out yet another bulb. Argh. I’m pretty angry at them right now, but… without a common language, it’s hard to tell them, it’s OK to eat the seeds we put out for them, but not the wires. We may end up without Christmas lights in the back this year… very disappointing... at least they’ve only chewed on the one string closest to the bird feeders, so far. 

 

Update: We found yet another Christmas light bulb and section of wire chewed out, when we got back from being out and about this afternoon… that makes four bulbs completely chewed out… those squirrels are voracious! 

 

I've read that the squirrels can mistake the bulbs for large nuts or acorns, and be proud of themselves, for getting themselves such a prize. In this case, they must have realized the bulbs weren't what they expected, so they left them behind. Apparently, squirrel teeth grow very fast, and they have a need to gnaw on everything around them, so their teeth don't outgrown their mouth. I've also read that manufactures have been mixing soy into wire insulation in recent years, to make it more environmentally friendly and recyclable, and an undesired side effect, is that rodents love the taste of the wires. 

 

Car owners, take note - they also love the wire harnesses inside your engine compartment. I was a lucky one, but there were people at work, who had significant damage done to their car wiring, while their cars were parked in the covered garage. My coworker had a strange warning light illuminate, on his trip home one night, and found to his chagrin, that he needed to splice a few dozen wires in his engine compartment, which had been chewed through completely. In some places, entire sections over a foot long were chewed through at both ends, and the entire wire had fallen to the ground. He had quite the challenge, repairing all that overnight.