# squirrels in my attic!



## MikeGager (Jun 15, 2009)

i have 1 or more squirrels nesting in the insulation of my garage ceiling. sometimes when im in the garage i can hear them running around. i dont know how they got in but im worried they will chew the wiring or something and cause a fire.

anybody know how to get rid of them?

im not really against killing them but dont want them to die inside the garage


----------



## HerbC (Jul 28, 2010)

Mike,

Try a trap such as this one, but first find all the openings that they may be using to enter the attic and close them up securely, otherwise you'll just be plagued with them again.

Good Luck and …

Be Careful!

Herb


----------



## Blackpearl (Jan 11, 2011)

I have had great luck with fox urine sprayed on the soffits of my garage. Surprisingly I did not have to harvest the product myself, my local hardware store has it.

I just use an old, pump, bug sprayer with a 1.5 Gallon capacity. I add one bottle of product to one gallon of water and spray the soffits of the garage and house once a year and no more squirrels.

Just mark the sprayer so you don't use it later in the summer to spray down the grandkids.


----------



## lilredweldingrod (Nov 23, 2009)

Spraying the grand kids….ROTFLMAO…. Blackpearl, you are mean, wicked, evil, and nasty! I like you. lol Rand


----------



## Ole (Dec 23, 2009)

Are you sure it's squirrels? I had a similar problem recently that turned out to be rats…


----------



## MikeGager (Jun 15, 2009)

no not 100% its squirrels as i havent actually seen them!

i have to assume they are squirrels as we have a lot of them around the house, never seen rats


----------



## Gregn (Mar 26, 2010)

Mike, Having gone through this dilemma myself, I can tell you to forget about traps, electronic repellents and chemical repellents. I fought them for 2 years getting rid of them. Go outside and examine the building for entrances. Generally along the roof line will be where you will notice a hole about 2"-2 1/2". Get metal flashing and cover the holes. You will want to exaggerate the size of patch needed as they are persistent and will chew a new hole to get back in. I had to go to the extent of putting flashing all around the roof line to prevent them from gaining re entrance. I then bought all weather rat poison sticks that break into sections that have a hole in them and nailed them to the trees and on the fence posts. It took about a month for them to eat it and be eradicated. Once a clan of squirrels gets familiar with your property they spread this information. so its important to eradicate this clan to (sort of speaking) delete this information. Once this is done and the problem is no more you can remove the flashing. I have been squirrel free for 3 years now. While squirrels are still running around the property they don't see the house as a nesting site and leave the house alone. Not only to they destroy wiring and insulation they will also weaken your joist and rafters. Extreme situations call for extreme measures when it comes to your property and the humane treatment of damaging pests.


----------



## Dcase (Jul 7, 2010)

I would first find out for sure what it is thats up there. It could also be Raccoons which are known to next in places like that. Do you have a cat? If you do throw it up there and see what it brings you.

Another option would be to smoke them out. A lot of people are against it but they have these smoke bombs you can set off that will clear them out for sure then do as the others said and seal it off.


----------



## Sawkerf (Dec 31, 2009)

The only permanent fix is to find the entrance hole and block it off. When I helped my neighbor get rid of a family of possums from under her house a few years ago, I "blocked" the hole with crumpled newspaper and had her check it every few hours. When she found the newspaper on the outside, it meant the the critter(s) were out and I could block the hole permanently. You don't want them dying inside and stinking up the place. - lol


----------



## wstokes (Mar 20, 2009)

I've had person experience with this as well. When I first moved into our home in the fall of 2008 we were infested with squirrels. When laying in bed at night you'd hear them scamping around above our heads. Talk about unsettling. Here is what I did to get rid of them. We have been without squirills for at least a year now:

1) Setup a havaheart trap in the attic. Bait it with peanut butter. Fruit didn't work so good. You can also use sunflower seeds plus peanut butter, although I found fragrant peanut butter works great and is cheap and easy to reapply to the trap.

2) FInd and seal up all the holes. You can use spray foam but they will continue to chew through it. On the other hand, once you have erradicated the population spray foam is good enough for me to fill the remaining holes and stains/paints easily to match the side of your house.

3) Find and remove any source of food in the attic. Apparently a prior tenant had left a huge bag of bird seed in the attic.

4) Figure out how they are getting in and where activity is so you can strategically move the trap around. To do this I did a pretty thourough cleaning of the attic cleaning up all loose insulation they had moved around. Now when I see loose bits of inulation where it should not be I know I have a critter.

We had small red squirrels, they are a real pain. Don't waste your time with small mouse traps, they will drag them away, or pull themselves out if the trap is screwed down.

In the end we caught and released far away about 4 squrilels. Another 5 or so froze to death since I didn't check the traps as often as I might have during the middle of winter (it was -5 here this morning here in MI). The first time that happened I felt bad, then I just got so sick and tired of the critters that I stopped feeling bad. On the plus side it's easier to remove frozen squirrels.


----------

