I could hear a lot of commotion outside, but I didn’t know what the sound was.
It was a weird whining but screechy noise. When I saw what looked like scratch marks on the wood of the deck, I knew we had a problem. I called an exterminator to come to the house and see what was going on. When he spotted a porcupine under our deck, I told him to get rid of it. He showed me where the wood had been chewed underneath, and I would need to replace the wood if my deck was going to be safe to use. After two days, the exterminator removed three porcupines and placed the retardant around the property to keep other porcupines from returning. Now, we had to call a contractor to do deck repairs. When the contractor came out, he checked under the deck and around it. He showed me where the porcupines had been chewing and said the deck wasn’t safe as it was. There was some major damage, but he should be able to do the deck repairs without removing the entire deck. I was glad he said this much, because I didn’t want to pay the cost of having the entire deck removed and repaired or replaced. As it was, the deck repair was going to be very expensive. I couldn’t believe a porcupine made deck repair a necessity. It took over a week for the deck repair to be completed, but my wife and I could sit out on the deck and enjoy the weather again.