Katherine Lee ’13 screamed when she saw a squirrel sitting at the end of her Smith House dorm room bed this past Wednesday. Two squirrels entered the dorm through a hole in the room ceiling and climbed down the pipes into the dorm. Lee was still in bed when she spotted the first squirrel on her bedpost. The second squirrel was situated on the pipes outside the door to Lee’s room. “When I woke up for class this morning, I saw a brown furry creature at the foot of my bed. At first I was not sure what it was, though I realized that it must have been one of the squirrels we heard in the ceiling,” said Lee. Brian Fitzpatrick, Facilities Manager at the Office of the Physical Plant (OPP), said OPP plans to set a trap to catch the squirrels outside the dorm. “I ran out of the room and saw another squirrel scurry up the pipe into a gaping hole that lead to the ceiling above my room,” said Lee. Lee told Mandi Thran ’11, another Smith House resident, about the commotion in and Thran notified Office of the Physical Plant (OPP) immediately. OPP repairmen covered the hole in the ceiling outside of Lee’s with wood within a few hours. Fitzpatrick said the squirrels must have gnawed through the siding to get inside. He said they typically try to get inside during the winter because the dorms are warmer. Lee said that the OPP repairman saw the squirrel run up the pipe outside of her room door. Lee was the only person in the dorm when she first encountered the squirrel this morning. When she saw the squirrel she ran out of her room and the door unexpectedly slammed behind her. Public Safety officers had to help Lee unlock her room. Kiki Somers ’12 said, “As I walked into the dorm this morning, I saw a few OPP repairmen walking in and out of Smith House. When I heard there were squirrels on the loose, I couldn’t have evacuated faster.” The squirrels did not harm any of the students living in the dorm. According to Fitzpatrick, no health precautions have been taken because squirrels are fairly harmless animals “I knew the squirrel would not hurt me, but I was really scared when I saw it scamper up the pipe,” said Lee. Lee said that the girls in Smith House had reported the squirrels in the ceiling to OPP just before winter break. Repairmen had seen squirrels entering the ceiling through a hole in the roof. OPP officers claimed that the problem was fixed, though Lee continued to hear the footsteps in the ceiling. “My roommate and I wake up frequently in the middle of the night to the squirrels in our ceiling. We have heard at least two squirrels bolting through the ceiling at once. Sometimes it seems as though the squirrels are chasing each other,” said Lee. “When I hear the squirrels in the ceiling, I always joke that the squirrels could somehow eat through the walls and attack me in my sleep. I never thought that it would actually happen,” continued Lee. Fitzpatrick said he noticed three squirrels on the roof when he visited the dorm on Wednesday. He hopes removing the squirrels will help take care of the problem. Many students in the dorm said that they have heard the squirrels running in the ceilings, especially during the night. Stacia Vladimirova ’11 used to live in the same room Lee. “Although the squirrels used to wake me up frequently, I have never had a face to face encounter with any of them.” Kate Shih ’13 said that she has sometimes heard squirrels scattering around in the ceiling, though she had never thought much of it. “I don’t know what other members in the dorm are talking about. I have never heard or seen any squirrels running through the ceiling or in the dorm hallways,” said Elizabeth Paul ’12, who lives in Smith House. Rumors about the situation quickly spread around campus and exaggerated the situation. Susanna Rademacher ’13 said that she heard that the squirrels fell through the ceiling and landed on Lee’s stomach. “Someone told me that they heard that the squirrel was crawling on my face. That never happened,” said Lee.
