Animal House Review

The trouble began with a squirrel. Not any squirrel—a wiry, manic looter named Chestnut. Chestnut had been casing the bird feeder for weeks. One Tuesday, he managed to squeeze through a gap in the attic eaves. He emerged in the living room just as a cake—baked by a surprisingly dexterous raccoon named Margot—was cooling on the counter.

The system was perfect.

It read:

The house at 13 Mockingbird Lane didn't look like much from the street—peeling white paint, a porch swing that creaked without wind, and gutters stuffed with the skeletal remains of autumns past. But inside, it was a kingdom. Animal House

She peered through the window. What she saw was a crow holding a slice of cake, a pug wearing a lampshade like a Elizabethan collar, and a tabby trying to flush a squirrel down the toilet.

He should have been angry. He should have evicted them. Instead, Harold Finch, who had lived alone for eleven years, who had no one to talk to but the mail slot, sat down on the basement sofa.

Then he heard it: a tiny click from the basement. The trouble began with a squirrel

For six months, Harold was none the wiser. He collected the rent via autopay from a tenant he’d never met—a reclusive programmer named "Sam." But Sam was a fiction. The house ran itself.

1. The "No Animals" clause is hereby void, as the undersigned tenant is, by legal definition, a collective of sentient non-human persons. 2. Rent shall continue to be paid via automated fish-canning operation (basement, northwest corner). 3. The landlord agrees to provide monthly pest control, with the specific exclusion of squirrels, who are now officially tenants.

Addendum to Lease Agreement for 13 Mockingbird Lane: One Tuesday, he managed to squeeze through a

He opened the door and descended. The basement was finished—nice, even, with a rug and a sofa. And there, arranged in a semicircle, sat a tabby cat, a one-eyed pug, a crow, a parakeet on a miniature perch, a raccoon, and a squirrel holding a single, perfect maraschino cherry.

The lamp shattered. The crash was loud enough to wake a real neighbor: Mrs. Gable from next door, a woman whose hobbies included knitting and filing noise complaints.

Not a human kingdom. An Animal House.