After reading the stories about ferret escapees, I thought I would add
two of my own.  About a year and a half ago,  Erika and I were living with
the Rats at her parents' brownstone apartment in NYC.  One day she got home
from work to find that both were missing.  After looking in every place
that a ferret could possibly sleep, I moved the washing machine and
discovered a freshly widened hole in the wall where the water pipes run.
Needless to say, panic ensued - the rats were in the walls.  After a
fruitless and exhausting night of whistiling, listening to walls with
stethoscopes, and pouring strategic ferretone attractors, I went downstairs
(It's 5:00AM by now)for some coffee, opened up a latched cupboard under the
stairs and Voila! ferret number one (tsatchka) appears.  She had made it
through walls, down the inside of stairs, and climbed through a crack in
the cabinetry and was very dirty, but, all in all, pretty frisky.  This
opened the possibility that  ferret #2 (babka) was downstairs as well, but
another search produced no results.  I went to work, after having gotten no
sleep, only to get a call that Erika has heard "something" behind the
kitcen sink.  To make a long story short, I (very, very carefully) ended up
ripping out large pieces of very thick plaster wall and part of a sink, to
find the poor fuzzie stuck in a kind of vertical cul-de-sac created by the
piping.  This also made me very popular with Erika's mother. (what's wrong
with my sink?)
    The rats have also figured out how to open screens.  We now live in a
loft (very well sealed up!) and have large windows.  Last summer, in the
middle of a thunderstorm, Babka figured out the trick and escaped into the
space behind the building.  Oddly enough, he tooled around various ledges
high abouve the ground, ignoring me, for quite a while before he tried to
get back inside. After finding he could not go up whence he came down,  he
got frightened; I got worried (ferrets do not look like cats walking on
ledges) and went out to get him. Big Mistake.  We were both saved by Erika
with a clothesline.
    I have thus complied a list of Essential Ferret Equipment:
    Drywall Saw
    Stethoscope
    Small Sledgehammer
    Wire Cutters
    Rope
    Harness
    Flashlight
    Sturdy Shoes
    Rain Slicker
    Health Insurance (avoid deductables)
 
Hope this prepares any of you prospective owners out there!
 
Love to all fuzzies out there from:
The Warden (Erika)
The Guard (Kevin)
The Convicts (Babka & Tsatchka)
 
P.S. - Great Pictures at the FTP site in Arizona!
[Posted in FML issue 1099]