How to get rid of squirrels and stop them from destroying your yard and garden.
With their slim body, silky coats, and charming wide eyes, squirrels are one of the most beautiful rodents. While it is endearing to watch them tree-scale, collect acorns, and stuff their cheeks full of nuts, these fluffy critters can cause irreparable damage if allowed to roam freely and invade your yard. For this reason, it essential to understand how to get rid of squirrels permanently from your property and keep them away.
During the warm months, squirrels are typically content with making their homes in tree cavities and branches, but when the weather turns cold and brittle, they start looking for areas where they can keep warm, which is where your home comes in handy.
They are drawn to existing openings such as newly formed holes, unscreened vents, chimneys, and any wooden space large enough for them to live in your home. This can be dangerous since squirrels can chew through almost anything, from water lines that can cause your property to flood to electrical wires that can cause a fire to break out.
How hard is it to remove squirrels from your home?
When they decide to live in your home and find a safe and warm place to build a nest, it becomes nearly impossible to remove them due to the protectiveness they feel over what they now consider to be their territory, and this can escalate to them being aggressive if they have kits in the nest.
Squirrels will not only gnaw through clothes, insulation, and paper products to obtain nesting materials, but they will also defecate all over your floor and dig holes in your yard to bury food they scavenged for the winter. The fuzzy rodents can also transmit parasites like mites and diseases like ringworm to humans by invading their homes and spoiling their food and possessions.
They wreak damage not only to dwellings but also to gardens. Squirrels are omnivores, meaning they eat plants and meat, so they have no problem plundering bird feeders or gardens and wreaking havoc on veggies you worked hard to develop by nibbling their way through rows of blooming food.
To be more aware of squirrel activity and prevent things like this, search for unexpected noises, especially in your attic, as squirrels are likelier to make a nest in your attic. Look for scratching and gnawing noises, and if you see what appear to be teeth marks on wiring, wood, and walls, you have squirrels in your home. This is because of their chewing.
Other indicators include eaten garden plants, holes in your roof, feces in your garage or attic, and increased activity around your property.
If you suspect a vast population of squirrels lurking in a tree in your yard or making a home in your attic, you should contact a wildlife exterminator and take the necessary safeguards to avoid incurring a hefty repair fee.
Types of squirrels
While North America has over sixty species of these fuzzy rodents, the most frequent ones people are likely to encounter are the red squirrel, fox squirrel, eastern gray squirrel, and western gray squirrel.
Tamiasciurus hudsonicus (Red Squirrel)
The red squirrel is as little as it is fierce. They are commonly found in forested environments and have reddish-brown fur with a black stripe painted along their sides to divide their upper fur from their white underbelly. Their tails are shorter, and white rings surround their huge eyes. They are highly territorial over locations they consider home and are known as chatterboxes due to their tendency to be noisy. Their diet consists of nuts, insects, seeds, and fruits. Red squirrels have a sweet tooth and are frequently seen biting into sugar maple trees to gain access to the sweetener found in the sap. Although they will not attack humans unless they believe their area is being invaded, their aversion to harsh weather forces them to seek shelter in human dwellings, causing incredible damage along the route.
Sciurus Niger (Fox Squirrel)
The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel in North America, recognized for its greyish fur and orange-tinged underside, and prefers to live in wooded regions with mature trees and no extensive undergrowth.
They are nearly identical in size and appearance to their male and female counterparts, and while they do guard their nests, they are not as territorial and fierce as the red squirrel.
They have powerful jaws that let them eat on bulbs, tubers, tree buds, acorns, roots, nuts, and other edibles. This, however, does not prevent them from raiding your garden in search of fruits and vegetables. Despite being natural tree climbers with long claws, they have a nasty habit of using electrical wires as their mode of transportation, often resulting in power outages. Because they spend most of their time on the ground foraging for nuts and acorns to cache for winter, they quickly work their way to becoming pests by gnawing on telephone wires, wooden properties and invading attics.
The Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis) is a species of squirrel.
Eastern gray squirrels are as widespread as they come, with frequent sightings in parks and other woodland places where they scale trees and nibble on scavenged food. Despite their name, they can display various colors, including black, gray, brown, and cinnamon. Their large bushy tails, which can grow as long as their bodies, are one of their distinguishing features. During cold and harsh months, gray squirrels often stay in their nests for days at a time without coming out and only become a genuine concern when they begin gnawing on home structures to gather nesting materials, and the gray squirrel, like its other counterparts, is more than likely to be responsible for a fire hazard due to chewing on insulation and electrical wires.
Sciurus Griseus (Western Gray Squirrel)
Despite being most active during the day, the western gray squirrel is timid and adamantly opposed to being anywhere near humans. Therefore their knowledge of human activities is nearly nonexistent. Their coats are silverfish black with a white underside and a big bushy tail that is blackish gray with a white tinge.
Although they forage on the ground for nuts and acorns, they prefer to nest and conduct most of their activities in oak and conifer forests, which are not dense but shield them from the prying eyes of humans.
Because of their lack of contact with humans, they are primarily dependent on their local ecosystem. Hence their dietary options are limited. Those nesting in coniferous forests mainly eat seeds and pine cones, whereas those in hardwood forests primarily eat nuts and acorns.
If they can access them, they prefer to dine on berries, insects, sap, and fungus.
If they are brave enough to penetrate human territory, they can represent a hazard due to the numerous parasites on their bodies and their proclivity to destroy property in their eagerness to construct a nest.
Diseases That Squirrels Can Cause;
Squirrels, as cute as they are, are wild animals that survive in the environment; therefore, if you are unconcerned about how much harm such a small-sized critter may inflict, you should reconsider, as squirrels offer a more significant threat than you may believe.
Squirrels can become violent and attack if they feel intimidated or confronted by a human, and if bitten or scratched during such attacks, you are at risk of catching a disease.
Because of the numerous parasites that squirrels carry on their bodies, they don’t always need to bite you to infect you, which is why entertaining their presence in your home could be dangerous.
Squirrels can transmit the following diseases:
Leptospirosis
This bacterial disease can be caught if the urine of an infected squirrel comes in contact with an open wound or contaminates a water supply, and it can cause severe head and muscle discomfort if left untreated.
Lyme disease
Squirrels’ thick fur sometimes serves as an ideal habitat for ticks, and a bite from a tick can cause Lyme disease and impair your neurological system.
Rabies
While it is rare for squirrels to pass rabies onto humans because they might not survive it long enough to do so, it is still an entirely possible prospect that if you are bitten or scratched by one of the infected rodents you might fall ill.
Salmonellosis;
Suppose squirrel feces with salmonella germs end up in human food. In that case, the salmonellosis disease will be transferred if the infected food is eaten, resulting in severe abdominal pain and diarrhea if not treated.
Harm That Can Be Caused by Squirrels;
Fire risk.
Squirrels nibble through anything they can find to keep their incisor teeth from growing too long due to having to deal with constantly increasing incisor teeth, which regrettably includes electrical cables. Once inside, they can chew through your insulation or electrical lines, causing them to short-circuit and start a fire.
This can also happen if they make their nests near a vent or an electric appliance for an extended period, causing it to overheat.
Floods.
Squirrels attack your water pipe for the same reason they attack your electrical wires: to keep their incisors at a set length. Although the damage to your pipe may be gradual, beginning with leaks and progressing to something as minor as moldy surfaces, your home may eventually experience floods.
Structural damage.
Squirrels can cause serious structural damage to your home by biting through wooden beams and walls to access your home and chewing through your fabrics, insulation, paper products, and other items for nesting materials.
Destroy garden.
Not only do they cause a nuisance by digging holes everywhere to store food for the winter, but squirrels can quickly decimate a well-kept garden due to their omnivorous nature and ferocious hunger. They will gnaw through any fruit or vegetable ripe enough to eat, leaving the gardener with terrible harm.
What Attracts Squirrels to a Home?
A steady and available supply of food and water and abundance of snug, warm locations for nesting and shelter from predators is more than enough to entice a wild animal like the squirrel.
Regardless, certain items act as magnets, attracting squirrels to your home regularly to establish an infestation.
Big trees;
As much as squirrels enjoy scampering on the ground in search of nuts and other foods to consume and store, their happy spot is where trees are because they provide food, shelter, and security.
Suppose your property is packed with or surrounded by many large healthy trees. In that case, it is an instant attraction point for squirrels, and you can be sure that there will be an activity of them nibbling on branches to build their nest or scaling and snuggling deep into the trees to avoid predators.
Bird Feeders;
Squirrels, being the opportunistic feeders that they are, can be found almost anywhere there are bird feeders.
The usual ingredients of nuts, millets, and sunflower seeds appeal to squirrels more than birds. Because they are creatures looking for food, they will begin visiting your home frequently, eventually displaying a domineering attitude and claiming territory on your property.
Gardens;
Gardens are almost as appealing to squirrels as bird feeders, if not more so. The aroma of ripe vegetables, fallen fruits, and seeds entice them to take up residence in your home, and loose garden soil also serves as an attraction point.
Squirrels enjoy loose soil because it allows them to dig whenever they want to store accumulated food for when it gets scarce, and gardens are a popular location for loose soil.
Easy Access Points;
Openings such as unscreened vents, chimneys, and holes in the wall attract squirrels because they promise warmth and a location to rear their young when the weather is not kind to them.
Allowing squirrels to discover and use vulnerable access points in your home is the ultimate invitation, and these rodents will jump at the chance because they are always looking for a warmer, more secure location to live.
Home Remedies for Squirrels;
Take away all food sources;
Given that the priority of every squirrel is finding something to eat and store, the very first step you should take as a remedy is to remove everything that serves as a food source for squirrels.
Recognize what they enjoy eating, from nuts to fruits to veggies to bird feeders, and devise a method to keep it out of reach.
If you can’t do something drastic like take down an entire fruit tree or dig up a whole garden bed, you may employ squirrel-proofing tactics on these plants and veggies to keep them away.
When there is no suitable food source nearby for them to find, they will quickly leave your property, never to be seen again.
Make a garden bed of repellent plants;
Squirrels prefer places that have pleasant odors. Thus using plants such as daffodils, hyacinths, and geraniums, among others, in your home will keep them away because their perfume repels them. Having a flowerbed of these plants in your yard will keep squirrels away.
Consider scattering pebbles over your soil to stop them from digging. Squirrels love to consume soil, therefore, using gravel will make the soil hard enough to prevent them from digging holes anywhere they want.
Get a dog;
One of the main reasons squirrels continually hunt for safe, secure places to build a nest and call home is their intense dread of predators and objects that can harm them.
In this instance, these rodents’ fear of dogs is extreme because dogs are natural hunters that will enjoy chasing squirrels away.
Having one in your yard will help to make your home a danger zone for squirrels because the moment they detect or see a dog nearby, they will flee as fast as they can and may never return.
Use apple cider vinegar;
The robust and acidic odor of apple cider vinegar disturbs squirrels greatly. Using it by placing it in spray bottles and soaking your attics and other areas of your home where squirrels are likely to congregate can keep them away.
Make use of the spices in your cabinet;
Grounding spices like garlic, gloves, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and the like into a flaky paste to sprinkle on your garden and flower beds is a great home treatment for squirrel repellent.
They will be well on their way away from your home the instant they catch a breath of the pungent, disagreeable stench.
Build a fence or make use of netting;
Given that gardens are a significant draw for squirrels, you should construct a wire fence around the entire garden bed to prevent them from becoming a nuisance.
The fence must not only be tall enough but also extend below ground level, as squirrels prefer to dig their way through objects.
In the case where having a fence won’t be possible, you can use netting by putting them over and around your plants to prevent the rodents from being able to chew through them.
This will result in food scarcity, and the resulting disinterest will be strong enough to keep them away.
Seal cracks and entryways;
Sealing everything that could be an easy access point for squirrels to enter your home goes a long way.
Ensure all openings, including unscreened vents, windows, and developing holes in your walls and roof, are closed. They will leave your home as soon as they understand there is no way for them to slither inside.
