I am trying my best not to be grossed out by this, but we have a family living in our attic.
I called the number one ranked company for this on Angie’s List, who visited yesterday. The squirrels put on quite a performance for him, climbing the house and scampering into the hole as he watched.
This company has a no-kill philosophy — no trapping, no killing. It waits until after fledgling season (which is when the babies are born and growing), then patches the hole, installs a one-way door. His quote also included reinforcing the other three corners of the roof to prevent them from reentering that way. Work is guaranteed for a year.
The guy was a bit of a hoot. He talked to me about mice and termites, too, roving all around and pointing out lots of other issues to me (like the drill holes all around my property that indicate past termite treatment). OTOH, he seemed to know what he was talking about, and so scared me a bit. OTOH, he ranted about real estate agents, warning me to never trust them — and I was wondering why I should trust someone that I just met for the first time.
Anyway — my main question is whether any of you removed squirrels in this more humane manner, pros and cons, and any other suggestions.
Apparently it is against the law where I live to kill squirrels who take up residence in your home. We also were cautioned against closing up holes before the time when the squirrels temporarily stop going into the attic or something like that because they could die in your attic if they couldn’t get out. So the critter company set traps. They would come check them at intervals, then “re-locate” them safely at the cost of $100 a pop. We had been told that only one squirrel family will populate a given attic (territorial), and that most families don’t exceed 6 or 7 members.
At 15 trapped squirrels, we got fed up and fired them. We finally hired someone to close up all the holes, dead squirrels be damned.
Google “use mothballs to get rid of squirrels”. My understanding is that it’s the smell that drives them away. (They don’t eat them so you are not killing them). You want to be able to remove the mothballs, so, you could use a bag made of netting with a long piece of twine tied around the opening to use to pull it back out rather than sprinkling the balls in the hole.
I will vote NOOOOOOO! on the mothball solution! DH tried that. He put the mothballs in the insulation as instructed by someone. OMG, the smell came right into the house. Our Ds and I both just freaked out because DH’s mom uses mothballs in her home and we always gag when we go over there from the smell.
It was so awful that DH had to hire a company to come take out the insulation and install new. Expensive endeavor.
I will say that perhaps this works if you are very judicious with the number of mothballs you use. DH just went crazy with them.
I have calls into 2 other companies. One problem we have is that our attic is impossible to get into (except for squirrels). @Nrdsb4 The company I called does not leave the holes intact; can’t imagine doing that! Fledgling season is over Oct. 15, so the wait isn’t too long. Let’s see what the other two places say.
I went through this not long ago, the squirrels were getting in via some gaps left by the idiot contractor years ago, allowed them to chew through the vinyl flashing and get in the attic. I would recommend getting the holes closed up, and using traps to get the squirrels out now. Squirrels will chew anything they can see, and I had one piece of Romex partially chewed through, then discovered a piece of romex they had chewed through and left the wires bare (I found out because I went to replace some insulation, and had a major surprise ie arcing (fortunately happened buried in insulation, which doesn’t burn, had to replace that wire).
I ended up going through multiple rounds, until I found all the holes, of trapping the squirrels, then removing them,then having another round. I did it myself, I bought traps from Agway and it was pretty easy, plus it gave me the pleasure of taunting the squirrels , to get back at them stealing my peaches and apples, and sitting on my back porch in front of the sliding glass door eating them and taunting us… I found their kryptonite, they love peanut butter, but it had to be a premium brand, they hate natural peanut butter and the store brand.
We had flying squirrels in our attic two years ago. The vendor we found put in a one-way door and plugged up the holes where he thought they were getting in. It took just 2 days until we stopped hearing the little paws running over our heads. Vendor came back, removed the door contraption, and sealed up that hole. No problems since.
He did caution that if a squirrel gave birth in the attic, the babies would not be able to get out through the door and would die in there (possibly the mom, too, if I recall correctly) and then we’d smell them decaying. That’s why he waited a few days after we stopped hearing noises, to give all of them time to get out. So his recommendation to wait until mid-October may be for that same reason. It’s more humane, yes, but really I was being selfish: I’d rather have live squirrels for another week or two than deal with the smell of a few dead ones, especially after the heat gets turned on.
I feel for you. After one of the Hurricanes, these tree rats got into my house. They nibbled on the paper of all cans in my pantry and the cardboard boxes. I got in a good pest control guy, and he recommended a termite company. This guy was over almost daily. One rat got so bold, he ran into my bedroom. When I had the kitchen redone last year, they found the Home they had.
It was weeks before we walked into the kitchen in the dark.
What is wrong with trapping them in a cage type trap?? Our squirrel guy placed the trap on our roof, outside of the attic. He only caught one squirrel after several days, which seemed to solve our problem, in spite of squirrel guy’s warnings that he saw evidence of past presence of squirrel breeding family. Holes were then plugged by a different contractor who was painting our trim. We declined the squirrel guy’s offer of a $3000 plan to squirrel proof our home. No recurrence yet. One important thing our knowledgealbe squirrel guy told us they (squirrels) have a very strong homing instinct and can find their way back to your attic even if relocated 5 miles away. You have to take them very far from your home… far off into the woods/mountains with no breadcrumb trail to follow you home.
It is standard procedure here to wait for fledging season to end and then wire a 1 way door. Otherwise you get dead squirrels in your house stinking. And possibly an animal cruelty violation. We’ve been through this. We’ve also used traps: be prepared to find a skunk in it. If so, wait til it’s asleep and then lift the door and run. We did borrow a trap to cat one of the feral kittens in our yard. One was the eater and crawled in. He’s now 15 and sitting about 1 inch from my laptop.
Good luck with whatever you do. I’ve had raccoons in the attic. I borrowed a live trap from the police department earlier this year and trapped one gigantic raccoon. Other raccoons later returned to the attic. My husband covered up the hole they’d opened in the roof; unfortunately, he did so while they were in the attic. They broke through in a different place. I"m pretty sure they’re gone now. I haven’t heard their sounds lately.
A rehabber recommended strobe lights. Not constant strobe, but frequent enough to drive them off. It also let’s you stand outside and find the holes where they are getting in.