b-boy
Well-known member
I have a bad squirrel/chipmunk problem in my crawlspace.
I have an old house that sits on a basement with a partial crawlspace. The original house is 30'X30', but there is an extra 10'x30' section that was added. Half of the section is an old cistern. It's all concrete, and is an extension of the basement. That area is under the kitchen. My back room sits on a poured concrete foundation wall with a mud floor. There is no concrete floor in the crawlspace. The way the house was built, there is no subfloor. The 1" tongue and groove flooring sits right on the floor joists. Because of this we get a lot of moldy smells coming up through the floor in that room. It also gets very humid under the house, which doesn't help with the mold smell.
To alleviate this, I added an under house dehumidifier, put a vapor barrier down on the mud floor, and had spray foam applied to condition the space. It works pretty well. I can keep the humidity levels down to under 40%. This reduces any moldy smells.
On to my current problem -
When I moved in, squirrels had the run of the crawl space. There was no real door to keep them out. The area was full of nuts and squirrel ****. The prior owner had foam board installed under the floor joists but the squirrels were living in it. They were even getting into my basement through a small window accessing the cistern. They also chewed through some wiring. I went under the floor cleaned it all out, sealed it, rewired, spray foamed, and added a dehumidifier. My problem went away. I spent quite a bit of money doing this.
Since then, I've occasionally had issues with a few animals getting into the space during the Winter. I've religiously tracked down how they've gotten in, and sealed it. They are relentless. They've even tried to chew through the access door I built.
Last Fall I found that they were getting in under some vinyl siding where a pipe was improperly installed. I managed to block that and poured some concrete to keep them from digging under the blocks I'd put in place. I've also put down some poison on occasion, which seems to work for a while.
After I blocked their access, everything was fine until March. I started hearing them in the crawl space again, and it sounded like there was a lot of them. I hurt my foot, so I've been unable to go under the house.
Yesterday I went under the house and found that they were in there and had trashed the place. They burrowed into my spray foam, there are walnut shells everywhere, and they ripped up my vapor barrier. I can see how they got in. They dug under the foundation wall, and came up inside the crawlspace. Since there's no floor, they were able to create a passageway from under my porch right into the crawl space.
First, I'm gong to call an exterminator. I'm done messing with these things myself.
Short of pouring concrete, I'm thinking of getting a few yards of river stone and covering the floor with 4" of the stone. Do you think this might keep them from digging up into the crawlspace?
How would you handle this?
I have an old house that sits on a basement with a partial crawlspace. The original house is 30'X30', but there is an extra 10'x30' section that was added. Half of the section is an old cistern. It's all concrete, and is an extension of the basement. That area is under the kitchen. My back room sits on a poured concrete foundation wall with a mud floor. There is no concrete floor in the crawlspace. The way the house was built, there is no subfloor. The 1" tongue and groove flooring sits right on the floor joists. Because of this we get a lot of moldy smells coming up through the floor in that room. It also gets very humid under the house, which doesn't help with the mold smell.
To alleviate this, I added an under house dehumidifier, put a vapor barrier down on the mud floor, and had spray foam applied to condition the space. It works pretty well. I can keep the humidity levels down to under 40%. This reduces any moldy smells.
On to my current problem -
When I moved in, squirrels had the run of the crawl space. There was no real door to keep them out. The area was full of nuts and squirrel ****. The prior owner had foam board installed under the floor joists but the squirrels were living in it. They were even getting into my basement through a small window accessing the cistern. They also chewed through some wiring. I went under the floor cleaned it all out, sealed it, rewired, spray foamed, and added a dehumidifier. My problem went away. I spent quite a bit of money doing this.
Since then, I've occasionally had issues with a few animals getting into the space during the Winter. I've religiously tracked down how they've gotten in, and sealed it. They are relentless. They've even tried to chew through the access door I built.
Last Fall I found that they were getting in under some vinyl siding where a pipe was improperly installed. I managed to block that and poured some concrete to keep them from digging under the blocks I'd put in place. I've also put down some poison on occasion, which seems to work for a while.
After I blocked their access, everything was fine until March. I started hearing them in the crawl space again, and it sounded like there was a lot of them. I hurt my foot, so I've been unable to go under the house.
Yesterday I went under the house and found that they were in there and had trashed the place. They burrowed into my spray foam, there are walnut shells everywhere, and they ripped up my vapor barrier. I can see how they got in. They dug under the foundation wall, and came up inside the crawlspace. Since there's no floor, they were able to create a passageway from under my porch right into the crawl space.
First, I'm gong to call an exterminator. I'm done messing with these things myself.
Short of pouring concrete, I'm thinking of getting a few yards of river stone and covering the floor with 4" of the stone. Do you think this might keep them from digging up into the crawlspace?
How would you handle this?
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A few months ago my wife read something on the internet that suggested using shredded Irish Spring soap!....
Well, we had a bar here, so we shredded it & sprinkled it around the holes.....