@jeanne-mayell Maybe the squirrel wanted to get away from the bad weather?
Speaking of which I hope you're doing OK with the weather up there.
We had a novelty down here! Icicles ! (I doubt you're impressed, but... they're unusual here )
They formed from water dripping into some plants from the end of a garden hose. (Whenever there's a hard freeze predicted we let some water drip to keep the hoses and pipes from freezing up.)
Anyone got any tips on squirrels in the house?
I don't know if it will work for squirrels, but I evicted raccoons from the attic by tuning a radio to a "classic rock" station, turning the volume on high, and leaving for work. The raccoons, apparently, were not metal-heads because they left.
Thank you @iridium @unk-p (ha ha) @lovendures and all for squirrel advice.
Update: Went down to the basement this morning and no surprise that there wasn't a peep. I opened the bulkhead and left it open for several hours. If he was down there, he would have left because it created a flood of light into the basement, and he would have seen it.
According to various authorities, they don't usually nest in basements; they prefer attics, and they don't run around inside people's homes unless they accidentally got trapped inside. All advice is to give them an exit and if that fails, then trap them with a havaheart trap and release them outside.
I learned something I had not known while researching havahart traps. The old wisdom when you catch an animal with one of those traps is to release them a few miles away so they can't come back. Well, turns out 97% of them die from being discharged to an unfamiliar territory, and that would be worse in the dead of winter. And I don't think it's a good way to die. So if I end out trapping him, he's going right into the back yard where he came from. :-)
@jeanne-mayell This winter a family of red squirrels moved into our house. (It's a 157 year old farm house so there are plenty of places we can't easily see) - we bought a live animal trap from Amazon and put peanut butter on it. I have captured two of the three now. We take the traps and drive out to the woods where we've let them go, but it's the most humane way to get rid of them.
@jeanne-mayell And now I've read your other post (should have continued down the thread) and feel bad about the catch and release. I can tell you though that it's a very wooded area and I'm confident they'll find a place to hunker down for the rest of the winter (that isn't the floorboard between the first and second stories.)
@dannyboy Well, I don't know what I'd do if the critter had come in willingly and was nesting in my house. I wouldn't just release them to my yard because they'd just come right back in. You'd need to search the roof and find the entry spot and seal it.
In researching my squirrel situation, I saw reviews of local companies that are expert in finding the places where they get in. They come out and know where to look and what to look for and they seal it up. (And you pay through the nose). You can do that, but it's daunting in winter. My squirrel, I'm almost certain, got in accidentally through an open door. That's different from a bunch of nesting squirrels.
Hi, we don’t have squirrels but we do have possums which get into homes. My story is a mouse. He was living in my kitchen behind a cupboard, didn’t want to kill him so I bought a special mouse trap baited it with peanut butter and we caught him and released him down the end of the street into bush. He was home the next day. So repeated the exercise and this time I drove a couple kilometres away to the start of a national park we have and released him there. There were houses nearby if he didn’t fancy the rustic life. He didn’t come back home.
Regards to all
My squirrel story involves my father in law. The darn things would eat all the bird food my MIL put out so she had him get a safe animal trap and take the squirrels to a park which was about 3 miles away. My MIL had quite a few bird feeders so squirrels were unwelcome but constant visitors. Before he passed away, I remember him telling me that, at last count, he had made over 300 trips taking the critters to the park.
@lenor I feel like I’m poised to become your father in law.
I feel like I’m poised to become your father in law.
I also feel like this is my most poorly worded post ever.
from the standpoint of Squirrel Relocation, I feel a kinship with your father in law 🤣