A Connecticut mom got an unexpected surprise when she went to investigate mysterious "clawing" sounds coming from somewhere inside her home. Alanna Fox had just returned from a weekend away at a wedding when she began to suspect something wasn't quite right. "I noticed that my cat was spending more time than usual near the unused chimney in our living room," Fox told Newsweek.
"I thought it was weird, but nothing alarming." A day later, however, her 6-year-old son came to her, concerned about something he had heard. "My son comes into my room and asks my husband and me, 'You guys don't hear that?'" Fox said. "That prompted me to go see what he was talking about, which is when I heard the clawing noise." Sometimes, it's the not knowing that gets to you.
Hearing a sound like "clawing" can send the imagination racing down any number of alarming paths. Fox was determined to find out what was causing the noise. Having noticed her cat lingering near the chimney, she decided to start there.
Equipped with a camera and flashlight, she began exploring the space around it. "When I watched it back, to my surprise, there was a whole arm and mouth peeking through a gap," she said. "I was hysterical," Fox said.
"After screaming and alerting the whole house, my husband had to calm me down." Eventually, using the video she had captured, the family was able to identify the intruder as a juvenile squirrel. Though it came as a shock to Fox and her family, animal intruders of this kind are common enough in Connecticut. According to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, most complaints about gray squirrels come from homeowners who have squirrels in their houses.
The animals are known to take up residence in attics, eaves, and crawl spaces when access is available. "We ended up trying to call wildlife rescue and animal control to help get it out," Fox said. "We spent the entire day calling around and finally got someone who specialized in squirrel removal." When the family did manage to get someone to come out, things didn't go entirely as planned.
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