Squirrelly Tactics

I have a confession to make. I throw rocks at squirrels. I also throw sticks, and anything else I might happen to have handy. This morning I threw an entire bag of trash at a squirrel, who was sitting (not so) innocently outside my kitchen window, on the ledge.
There used to be a time when I thought squirrels were cute. There used to be a time that seeing them didn't automatically cause my hand to reach out for the nearest missile. That was before they moved into my house.
It all started when I bought the place. It is an old fixer-upper that I have been donating alternating amounts of sweat and blood to, for four years now. When we bought it we had cable installed and it so happened that the cable guy could not drill through the brick (not that I wanted him to) to install the wire, so he ran the cable wire through the attic vents, and down into the house. Within a few months we started having reception trouble with the TV, and the cable company had to come out and splice the wire. A squirrel was living in a tiny space, inside the gable, about a foot square. It couldn't get inside the attic,though, because a large board was nailed up over the gable, on the inside, presumably to keep out the squirrels. That should have been our first clue that this was going to be a problem for us, but we were house "newbies" and were not wise as to how persistent squirrels could be. Anyway, he was chewing the wire, because it was in his way. Or maybe he just needed something to do with his spare time.
So Christmas Eve, we went to a Christmas party, and left my aunt home watching TV. On the way home from the party, I got a call from family, saying that she had been calling and calling, and was hysterical, because there was a squirrel in the house. (We had named the squirrel A.J., and all subsequent squirrels that we referred to after that were also called A.J.)(I don't know why, it just worked out that way.) My phone was dead, so we had no idea she had been trying to reach us. I listened to the message later, and laughed until I cried. (Answer your &^*&%^%$^& phone, there's a ^%^%$^%#$ SQUIRREL in the house. COME HOME NOW! What the @#*&% am I supposed to DO!)
When we got home, we saw him perched up on the ledge outside the gable.
Apparently, the cable guys had loosened the board separating us from the animal world, and A.J. had come down through the walls, found a hole in the wall that came out through the hall ceiling where the fluorescent lights were installed, ran into my daughter's room, through the dollhouse, over the beds, and back through the hall, back into the light fixture, and back into the attic and out the hole, with my aunt and the cat chasing it all the way, screaming hysterically, (The aunt, not the cat.)
We, my husband and I went into the attic and fixed the board, but unfortunately, the splice holding the TV cable broke in the process, and we spent four hours in the attic, repairing it, so my husband could watch the Cowboys play the next day, because we knew nobody was coming out to fix it at 4 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. We even filled in the space where A.J. was living with a piece of two by four, thus eliminating our squirrel problem. We thought.
Two years later, early in the morning, my son came running into my room. "MOM! I heard something in the Kitchen! There's something in the wall!" Now I take my son seriously when he says he hears something, because the one time I didn't listen (he was five), our house was invaded by a beehive. But that's another story.
I went into the kitchen and I heard it too. I called the wildlife people, and they came out and looked, but couldn't find anything. We didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks, so we thought it was just a freak thing. Then one morning, I heard scampering in the ceiling. I called the wildlife people, who said they couldn't get there until the next day. Later that day, while standing by my car, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a squirrel zip by, and disappear into my house. I blinked and rubbed my tired eyes, and saw another one! They were getting in through the openings on either side of an old chimney built as an afterthought (in the seventies) on the side of my house.
The wildlife people came out and put in a one way door, and we were successful in removing them, but the cost was enormous. 279.00. I'm sure it's reasonable in the pest control world, but that was a big pill to swallow unexpectedly.
So I started throwing rocks at squirrels anytime one would come close to my house. Sometimes I see a shadow through the blinds, and I will run over and pull up the blind very fast, and see a squirrel hanging upside down from the ledge outside my window, 35 feet off of the ground. I usually bang really hard on the window, and give it my best glare, but they don't seem to care. They just look at me and keep on snacking. I think they might even be smirking at me.
Then, last week, I came outside my front door, to walk my company to their car, and I saw A.J. chewing through a corner of my house! She, I'm pretty sure it was a pregnant she, had made a big hole, in preparation for a nest, in the soffit running alongside my roof. But here's the thing. She was chewing through METAL. The corner of my house is wrapped in painted metal. I, of course, started throwing rocks, and sticks, and cussing uncontrollably, and scared her away, but not for long. As soon as I went in the house, she was back. Again and Again. I finally went the store and got some new sheet metal, and some spray foam, and filled the hole with big rocks, and sprayed an entire can of foam into the soffit. Then I covered the whole thing with new sheet metal. A bit unorthodox, I know, but I had to come up with something fast, before she moved in.
Of course, I noticed, as I was repairing the damage from the latest A.J. incident, that she had tried out several places along the roof line, before she found a place that was "just right." It's like my home is a "gingerbread house" for the squirrels. They just take a piece here, and another there, whenever they have a sweet tooth.
I used to be kind of afraid of them. I went up into the attic for something, when the squirrels were still in the ceiling, and when I looked down, I could see a whole bunch of little beady eyes looking back up at me. I hightailed it out of there as fast as I could go, with visions of man eating squirrels, with 10 inched bared teeth following me, all the way to safety, on the other side of the attic door.

But, as I say, I'm getting braver. I no longer hesitate to throw whatever I have available at the squirrels, even if it is a bag of garbage, as long as I can distract them from disassembling my home. The neighbors must think I'm crazy sometimes, out there screaming at the squirrels, but then again, maybe they understand more than I think. They probably have their own squirrel tactics.