Squirrels can be adorable little creatures — when they’re outside. However, when they try to make it into your home, they can cause some serious damage. This article will give you some quick tips on how to keep squirrels where they belong: outside your house.
How Do Squirrels Invade Your Home?
Squirrels can squeeze their way into your attic through small holes around the size of a fist or even smaller in the soffit and fascia under the roof, the chimney flashing or construction gaps in your house. Anyone who’s seen a squirrel move knows that they can jump long distances. It’s not difficult for them to get from a tree branch over to the house itself and then squeeze or gnaw their way into the attic. Once they get inside, they may build a nest, have babies and continue their damage. They can chew through wires, creating a fire hazard. They can leave droppings all over your attic and anything you may have stored up there. Even if you are able to find and patch up the entry point yourself, they will chew another one in order to get to their babies inside.
How to Keep Squirrels Out of Your Home
If you don’t have squirrels setting up a summer home in your attic, consider yourself lucky. There are steps you can take to keep it that way.
- Discourage squirrels from climbing any trees by trimming the limbs so they are at least six to eight feet away from the house.
- Fasten a band of sheet metal six to eight feet high around each tree trunk.
- If you have a chimney, place a cap on it.
- Inspect the exterior of your house for potential entry points to your attic. Look for gaps, holes and areas weakened by rot.
- Check your attic to see for points of entry. You can sometimes spot these if you see light coming through from the outside.
- Inspect the interior of the attic. Light shining through from the outside could indicate a point of entry.
Summer is the perfect time to seal up your home, because most attics are too hot for squirrels to live in during this time of year. Therefore, you’ll be sealing them out — not in. Further, they won’t have babies there, so they’ll have less incentive to burrow back in. While you can seal up entry points yourself, it’s much preferable to have a qualified pest control company do the job. At Breda, we use heavy-gauge, custom-made galvanized metal flashing to properly seal your entry points and keep squirrels from returning. We’re so confident of the quality of workmanship and service we provide that we guarantee it for a lifetime. Our family-owned business has been serving the Atlanta area for over 40 years. We’d like to have the opportunity to serve you.
Our experienced, certified Atlanta professionals will inspect your house using infrared cameras to find out how they’re getting in. After removing the squirrels, they will seal or close all of the entry points, fix the damage caused by the critters and disinfect the area. Request a free consultation today to speak to a professional about your squirrel problem.
