About two weeks ago, one of my daughters called and told me she was hearing something in their walls. Not normal apartment noise. Not pipes. Not neighbors.

Scratching.

The kind of scratching that makes you immediately start wondering if renters insurance covers emotional trauma.

She wanted me to tell her what it was. Now, I had a pretty good idea, but knowing that even saying the words rat or mouse would send both of them into Olympic-level panic, I had to choose my words carefully… like I was negotiating with hostage takers.

Now hear me out — this gets a little technical.

If I’m not wrong, most walls are built eight feet tall using 2x4s spaced 16 inches on center. That means the inside cavity space is about 14½ inches by 3½ inches. That’s not exactly a penthouse suite. That’s more like “micro-living for something small, furry, and highly motivated.”

And if you’re hearing scratching in a space like that, chances are something is using its teeth to dig into the gypsum wallboard to gain access to either your apartment… or your neighbor’s.

And of course — and this is no coincidence — this was the closet where they store their food and snacks.

Because if you’re a wall creature, you don’t break into the linen closet. You go straight for the Doritos.

I told them to email the apartment office and create a maintenance ticket. The problem was, this was late on a Friday night. And everybody knows maintenance emails sent after 5 PM on Friday go straight into what I call the “See You Monday” folder.

Unless you call the emergency number.

Now, being two women who are convinced anything smaller than a deck of cards is capable of crawling into their apartment, creating chaos, and starring in a true crime documentary about them… they called the emergency number.

Voicemail.

They left a message… and then sat there waiting for a reply like they were waiting on lab results.

At this point, every sound in that apartment was suspicious.
Refrigerator kicked on? Suspicious.
AC made a noise? Definitely suspicious.
Ice maker dropped ice? Obviously the wall creature testing structural weaknesses.

Sometime Saturday, management finally called — only to say pest control would come Monday. After what I can only imagine was a spirited discussion, management agreed to call the maintenance man.

Moments later, their phone rang. It was the maintenance man. He had gotten the message but couldn’t help — he had been in a bad accident and was currently in the hospital.

But — and this is dedication — he said he’d call one of his buddies to check out the situation. That is the most “maintenance guy” thing I’ve ever heard. Man is in a hospital bed like, “I can’t walk, but I know a guy.”

Several days later — and after multiple calls to the apartment office — pest control finally showed up along with the maintenance buddy. Apparently coordinating schedules while my daughters believed they were under siege from a wall monster took a little time.

Now, working in maintenance for years, I learned something:
Problems disappear when maintenance shows up.

You can have water pouring from the ceiling.
You arrive.
Bone dry.
Like the house is gaslighting you.

That’s exactly what happened here.

They checked the apartment while my daughters were at work.
Heard nothing.
Saw nothing.
Probably left thinking, “These girls need hobbies.”

Then my daughters got home.

And… scratching.

One of my daughters did the smartest thing possible — she recorded the sound and emailed it to management. Nothing says “I am not imagining this” like audio of something trying to chew through Sheetrock like it’s a Nature Valley bar.

The next day, the manager, the maintenance buddy, and pest control all came back — this time with purpose. They had seen the video. They had heard the scratching. They knew something was living rent-free in that wall.

First, they drilled a small hole and inserted a camera. They saw insulation disturbed.

Then they decided to cut a hole in the wall.

And there she was.

A squirrel.

Just sitting there.

Not running.
Not panicking.
Not even mildly concerned.

Just sitting there like, “Oh good, maintenance is here. My sink has been dripping.”

Pest control removed the squirrel and released it outside where it belonged. The A-Team then spent the next several hours trying to figure out where she got in.

Whether they found the entry point or not, they did tape up the hole in the apartment. Which is good… but also feels like putting a Band-Aid on a submarine.

I’m hoping they permanently fix it soon. Preferably before the squirrel comes back with a lease agreement and three cousins.

Last night was the first night in a while that my daughters didn’t go to sleep listening to something chew in their walls.

What happened to the squirrel after that? Nobody knows.

Will she return? Hard to say.
It was her home for a little while.

But hopefully she decided apartment living is too expensive… and moved somewhere with trees, acorns, and zero humans.