Animals in the Attic

My mom often talked about how she could hear squirrels in the attic. I never heard them, even after I knew to listen for them. She said as she was drifting off to sleep, she would be kept awake by what sounded like a small animal (most likely squirrels as they were popular rodents in the area where we lived.) So we had an exterminator come in and check for them, only to be informed that all he had found were bones and feces. Whatever animal that had been up there had been dead a long time.

The only way to our attic was in the garage. I had never felt quite comfortable in the garage, but it was the first time we ever had one and I dubbed it a normal occurrence. One day I went out to the garage to get some food from the freezer. It just happened to be situated directly underneath the ladder to the attic. That day, I felt even more uneasy than I usually did, so I grabbed an unopened bag of what I needed, slammed the freezer closed and left. I took my time to open the package and set my food on the counter because I really didn't want to go back in the garage that day.

I thought about how much stuff had been disappearing from the garage as of late. I went back into the garage only to see the attic open, and the freezer opened all the way. The floor wasn't slanted enough for the door to have opened itself like that, and the attic had a panel you had to push up and sideways to get out. I shoved the newly opened bag on the top of the freezer and said, "Take the food, just don't hurt me or anything!"

I was around twelve at the time so that was all I could think to do. I slowly closed the freezer and backed out of the garage. The attic was too high for me to close so I left it alone. After that incident nothing else happened from then and even now after we've moved. My mom even stopped hearing the "squirrels" in the attic.