Squirrel/Chipmunks in the shed

[BetterDays]

As I was approaching my 12x16 shed yesterday, I noticed a small squirrel (maybe a non-singing chipmunk) crawl into soffit. Great, they ate through the screening to hide inside.
My project next week (as it is a long weekend, thankfully) will be:

1. Carefully empty the shed, hoping they scatter as items move out.
   1. If needed, I may smoke bomb the shed with the door open so they can get back to nature.
2. Repair Screening on the soffit, check ridge vent on shed for other damage.
3. Overlap screening with small gauge chicken wire
4. Find / repair misc damage either caused by them, time, etc.

Besides repairing the hole and adding the chicken wire, what else can I do to keep them at bay? Scents? Oils? No electricity, so not easy to add a light or other electronic device.

As the bottoms of the doors need repaired (thank you Ohio Winters when we had them), I need to add support on each as the t1-11 is rotting through. I am thinking about adding more chicken wire at the bottom of the door to extend below and ensure critters cannot get in through the bottom of the door. It will essentially scrape the top of the ramp when closed.

I have had sheds for almost 20 years and never had a critter problem until now. Hoping I can make this a one and done situation, as they have plenty of trees to enjoy.
**Edited to add that it is a 12x16 shed**

 

[jkuro]

Cat

 

[BetterDays]

Cat

That might work for others, but not sure it applies here. It's a 12x16 shed at the back of my property. I won't lock it in the shed and then caring for it or adding to the feral cat population in the neighborhood.

 

[Stuart in MN]

I don't think chipmunks are as determined, but my experience with squirrels is they will not give up on trying to regain entrance. You can try blocking off holes with metal or hardware cloth screening, but chances are they'll try to chew a new hole somewhere else. I suspect you'll have to resort to trapping and eradicating them.

 

[CombatNinja]

 

[BetterDays]

I don't think chipmunks are as determined, but my experience with squirrels is they will not give up on trying to regain entrance. You can try blocking off holes with metal or hardware cloth screening, but chances are they'll try to chew a new hole somewhere else. I suspect you'll have to resort to trapping and eradicating them.

Not sure which they are, as they scooted fast when the door opened. Bigger than most chipmunks, but smaller than most squirrels I have seen. Maybe baby squirrels (insert song lyric if you know it), but need to be gone!

 

[30-30remchester]

A chipmuck is nothing but a mouse in nicer clothes.

 

[BetterDays]

A chipmuck is nothing but a mouse in nicer clothes.

But that mouse has a ton of money and followers!

 

[Wolley]

Could be a red squirrel. Clear any trees that they can jump from onto the roof. A rat trap will work if you want to kill them.

 

[BetterDays]

I went out today and there were no animal sightings.
We have a long weekend coming up and I think I have another solution.
In addition to the chicken wire, I have extra soffit from the house that is ventilated that I could put over The screen and chicken wire has an additional barrier to entry.
I would need to cut it down the size but I think this might work as well

 

[pima67]

Plastic screening? Use metal. Also use 1/4 inch hardware cloth rather than chicken wire.

 

[BetterDays]

Plastic screening? Use metal. Also use 1/4 inch hardware cloth rather than chicken wire.

Not sure what screening was used when it was built.
Planning replacement screening (will need to see the best way to secure), then the metal chicken wire (most likely double or tripled, as I already have it from a project that never happened), and then the plastic soffit.

 

[slowtwitch73]

I skirted our shed with chicken wire.. it comes out at 90 degrees on the ground for 2 feet and then I put gravel down over it.

Combination anti critter and fire hardening.

 

[dandan111]

My barn cats will eat a squirrel. Only thing left is a tail when
they’re done.

 

[BetterDays]

I will be doubling or tripling this.

 

[BetterDays]

I skirted our shed with chicken wire.. it comes out at 90 degrees on the ground for 2 feet and then I put gravel down over it.

Combination anti critter and fire hardening.

I feel that is why we bought the chicken wire that we have and then never did underneath.

 

[PCustoms]

Thank goodness it's not bats in the belfry....

As someone else said cut back any trees they're using for access. Sealing up the holes will be good, best to make sure they're outside first.

I had some variant of tree rat making my house home before I moved in, I had to do some thinning of trees and the herd before the issue resolved itself.

Now the dog keeps them clear out of the yard!

 

[Dagny]

12 Ga.

 

[PCustoms]

12 Ga.

Could use something with a bit more finesse...

 

[dvblanch]

Rat trap with a peanut wedged onto the trigger works but a pellet gun lot more fun if you have the time

 

[four.cycle]

@Bulletpruf's "1001 Ways to Kill Squirrels" thread

 

[racecougar]

To clear them out before you seal off their entrance/exit, spray a good dose of peppermint oil in there. Don't dilute it; just pour this into a sprayer and douse the interior of the building. Be warned, this stuff is like tear gas, you don't want to douse yourself.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PBEKUQ4/?tag=atomicindus08-20

I've used this method in a few attics to get the squirrels to leave before I wired up the hole(s) they made. They're always out within a few minutes.

 

[gahrajmahal]

How topical!







I was just finishing my coffee before transporting NUMBER 33 to the park. The numbers of critters varies from year to year. The penalty for living in a beautiful wooded area. We just use a have-a-heart trap and use bird seed for bait. The porch photos show the screen application keeping them from going underneath the porch. The photo of the small digging spots show the garden damage that is driving the Mrs crazy.

You must take the animals away from your property, or as others will enthusiastically tell you, kill them.

If you have squirrels getting into the upper areas of your house they are all out during the day. Apply your scent of choice, I use moth balls, then repair the hole with metal cloth or sheet metal flashing. You will have to change your bait and use the larger size of have-a-heart trap for squirrels.

As far as bats…



“The count” should be back under our deck in June for his fourth season with us. He is a boy, little brown bat, endangered. We see him and his friends flying at dusk eating all the mosquitoes we hate. If you get lots of bats it’s probably a girl. So build them a nice bat house and seal off your attic hole after dark when they all are out feeding.

 

[four.cycle]

^ smoke bombs will drive bats out, but it's very difficult to seal up every crack where they can get in.

 

[Jazz1]

Rat traps are effective,,,, live traps you have to deal with relocating the critters to the next state.

 

[CombatNinja]

Who relocates squirrels!? Pests need to be treated as such. I'm all about harmony with nature. I have lots of flowers for the bees, lots of trees for the birds and generally leave half an acre of my property semi-wild for the critters. As soon as they start destroying my ****, it is game on.

 

[CraigStu]

A pellet rifle from here makes less noise than a .22 so more neighbor friendly.

Air Rifles | For Sale | Pyramyd AIR

Buy air rifles for target shooting, pest control, hunting or competition. Thousands of reviews and product selection that will cause analysis paralysis.

www.pyramydair.com

 

[CombatNinja]

I live in the country so I prefer the versatility of a .22LR. I can see the attraction of an air gun but my issue with those is they often wound the animal rather than kill it. I prefer to minimize suffering where possible.

 

[WisJim]

In most states you need to get permission from the property owner of the place that you relocate pest animals to, even if it is public property.
One of my sons had red squirrels eat through the wood trim to get into his attic. Covering it with steel when he had a standing seam roof installed seems to have solved that problem, as did judicious use of his pellet rifle. He's in town, so the 22 was out of the question.

 

[LeonardY]

The Lady of the Garden preferred I relocate them until they started eating all her apricots. They didn't actually eat the fruit they wanted the seed. Then there was much less resistance.

For the fruit trees, I've learned to make mesh bags with Shake Away Coyote urine mix. I hang the bags in the trees. The squirrels are still around but they don't come any where near the trees. Squirrels aren't smart enough to know coyotes don't live in trees.

 

[ZRX61]

If you manage to catch a squirrel & hold it up to your ear, you can hear what it sounds like to be attacked by a squirrel..

 

[gahrajmahal]

Who relocates squirrels!? Pests need to be treated as such. I'm all about harmony with nature. I have lots of flowers for the bees, lots of trees for the birds and generally leave half an acre of my property semi-wild for the critters. As soon as they start destroying my ****, it is game on.

This was two years ago. I counted 11 that year. They were always in the bird feeder too. No one was trying to get into the house so we just let them live their lives. We also have three big oak trees so we have lots of acorns in the fall. This year we only had one squirrel so in the spring we had buckets and buckets of acorns in the garden. I hauled many heavy buckets to the brush drop off, so for us a balance of nature is what we aim for. If they tear up our house, or get in, or destroy the garden too much we catch them and take them away to be released in a big wooded park. Our chipmunk count as of today is 44. I caught four on Friday for a record.

Our son who lives more in the city told of his neighbor who thinking he had one chipmunk made a bucket trap with peanut butter. He was mortified to check it the next day to find 6 chipmunks floating drowned in the bucket.

 

[CombatNinja]

I used to have up and down years with the squirrels. A couple of red-tailed hawks have taken up residence and have been practicing 'ethnic cleansing' ever since.

 

[ZRX61]

Ours have their own picnic table, at least half of the neighbors on my (10 home) street feed them

 

[BetterDays]

Ours have their own picnic table, at least half of the neighbors on my (10 home) street feed them

My mother feeds hers... Damn thing does inverted situps to get the food from the bird feeder!

 

[ZRX61]

Imagine if we had Malabar squirrels in the US, they can be up to 3ft long... Saw some at Long Beach Aquarium a few years ago.

 

[pizza]

Imagine if we had Malabar squirrels in the US, they can be up to 3ft long... Saw some at Long Beach Aquarium a few years ago.

it's very beautiful, but it's still a fancy rat (pest)

 

[CombatNinja]

If we don't have them yet, I'm sure there are people letting them out of their cages in South Florida as we speak.

 

[four.cycle]

[CombatNinja"I live in the country so I prefer the versatility of a .22LR. I can see the attraction of an air gun but my issue with those is they often wound the animal rather than kill it. I prefer to minimize suffering where possible.[/quote]

@CombatNinja - In the other "Squirrel" thread there was recently discussion about various types of projectiles used for the .177 caliber air rifles, and the blunt-nose models seem to have a fairly high rate of efficacy. The last one I hit (Sunday) stopped moving with ten seconds. I don't think you can reasonably expect much better than that. Requires careful aim, though.

 

[Wreckster23]

Fighting the same problem with mice. All the stuff is coming out, mesh the problem areas and done.