Squirrels are delightful to observe in the wild, but once they invade homes, they can cause thousands of dollars of damage within days. To keep squirrels away from your home, look for entry points and block them with wire mesh, caulk, or foam. Trimming overhanging branches and utilizing foul-smelling deterrents can also help.
Get Rid of Their Food Sources
When squirrels invade your property, they can destroy your garden, consume your flower buds, chew on electrical wires, gnaw on the side of your house, burrow into attics and crawl spaces, and more. Additionally, they can potentially transmit illnesses such as rabies and tularemia. The best way to eliminate them is to remove their food sources and deter them with various other methods. For instance, spraying a solution of cider vinegar and water in your yard or plant beds will make it more unpleasant for them to stay. You can also use motion-activated sprinklers to scare them away. Other ways to discourage squirrels include placing tall fences and netting around plants, installing bird feeders protected with cages or mesh, and spreading mulch containing a ground-up mix of gravel and chicken wire. It will prevent them from squeezing into your gardens and flower beds. You should also look for entry points and seal them with 1/4″ hardware cloth or metal flashing.
Seal Off Their Entry Points
Squirrels often enter homes and other buildings for food, shelter, and a place to raise their young. They can easily chew through tiny openings in the attic or crawl space, causing damage to wires and insulation. It can pose a fire risk and make your home uncomfortable for you and your family. To prevent any unwanted intruders from entering, it’s vital to seal off any potential points of entry. Check for any holes around the roofline, soffits, and vents, and use caulk to fill in any gaps. Cover these areas with steel wool, expanding foam, or lath screen metal to further reinforce them. Sealing holes in the siding, garage, sheds, and outbuildings would be best. Squirrel removal Winter Park FL professionals will locate all animal access spots in your home and seal them with expert fixes. They can also install deterrents to keep squirrels away, such as a fake owl or ultrasonic repeller.
Remove Their Nests
Squirrels love to build nests in soffits, attics, and chimneys. They can also chew through wires, causing a fire hazard and damaging insulation. The best way to prevent this is by removing their food sources, preventing them from entering your home, and ensuring that there are no openings in your roof or house through which they can enter. Babies are likely inside if you find a squirrel’s nest in your attic. Please do not attempt to remove the babies or the mother; leaving them until they can survive without their mother is better. You can frighten the mother and her babies into leaving by banging on the rafters or going into your attic, but this isn’t always effective. If you don’t want to wait for the squirrels to leave alone, hire a pest control company that can humanely trap and relocate them. The specialist can also identify entry points and seal them off to ensure the squirrels won’t return.
Humanely Trap Them
While these animals are often depicted as cute little creatures burying acorns in their chubby cheeks, they can cause severe damage to homes, like chewing on electrical wires or gnawing holes in walls. These damages can lead to expensive repairs as well as fire hazards. To prevent further damage to your property and to keep the squirrels away, it is advisable to trap them as soon as you notice any signs of their presence in your home. To do this, you must look for entry points into your house, such as dislodged soffit screens, loose flashing around chimneys, or holes in gable-end louvered panels. You can use single-animal live cage traps or repeater traps to catch the pest animals and remove them from your property. When using these types of traps, it is vital to check them frequently so that you can quickly catch any new squirrels as they enter your home. For your safety, wearing thick gloves when dealing with the trapped squirrels is recommended to prevent accidental bites.
