Two squirrels ruled the roof and ceilings above the Miller County judge's office for several weeks, but they were finally caught without being injured using a trap and WD-40.
"For about two months on and off, we could hear them running and smacking while eating. Then they would disappear. When they came back it sounded like they were having a ball running across the ceiling," County Judge Roy John McNatt said.
McNatt, his staff and occasionally visitors could hear something moving in the ceiling above the offices in the Texarkana, Ark., courthouse.
The maintenance staff got a live trap with the goal of capturing whatever was running in the ceiling. It was uncertain what was creating the noise.
McNatt brought pecans for bait from his house, and maintenance technician Gauge Bustin used a ladder to climb about 12 feet to the ceiling, remove the ceiling tile and set the trap.
When triggered, a door on the trap shut, capturing but not injuring the animal.
"The squirrels were smart. They would go over the trap and get the pecans, and then they would be gone," McNatt said.
Then someone had the idea to make it a hair-trigger trap by using WD-40 lubricant to grease the door hinge.
"If it touched anything, it would go off. It was touch-and-go. Within a day or two, we heard it go off," McNatt said.
The squirrel was removed unharmed, and Nancy Herron, chief deputy assessor for Miller County, volunteered to adopt the squirrels. She took them to a wooded area near her house.
"My granddaughter (Savannah Smith, 12,) loves the squirrels," Herron said.
When released, one squirrel "darted out," and the second squirrel "loped" out of the cage.
It's thought the squirrels got into the building through a hole near an air conditioning unit, McNatt said.
The old unit has been replaced, and the roof is sealed to keep critters out of the ceiling.
"It was fun. We heard them for a couple of months playing. We worried they would fall through the ceiling and land on our desk or land on someone," secretary Tammy Dirickson said.