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Squirrel Repellent - Deterrent
Repellents the first and easiest thing that you can try if you have squirrels in your attic or chimney. Especially when a female squirrel is concerned about
having a safe place to raise her young, a harassing presence including any scent (predator urine is good, as is squirrel eviction fluid discussed below)
and noise (radio) might encourage her to leave the attic with her young.
That said, in general there are many long-standing old wives’ tales about animal
and repellent, and there are many modern products sold meant to evict unwanted critters from property and homes, and most all of them are bogus. Some of
the old-fashioned standards include naphthalene (moth balls), ammonia, bleach, and even human hair. The idea behind these repellents is that they simply
create an unpleasant odor that squirrels don’t like, which encourages them to leave. In my years of experience as a wildlife removal professional, I’ve
seen many of these tactics used in an attempt to evict squirrels. I’ve never seen them work, but that’s also because in the cases they do, I’m not called
out. The problem is that an attic is large and well-ventilated, and the odor isn’t very strong. A squirrel will often just move to another, less offensive
part of the attic. Even in cases in which the odor is strong, it’s not enough incentive to make the animal leave. Once a squirrel has established a home
in an attic, it takes more than a bad odor to make it leave – you wouldn’t abandon your home if someone spread some mothballs inside. This is a wild
animal that needs to survive, and it will tolerate quite a bit in order to keep its home. That includes all of the current repellent and deterrent products
sold.
If you do an online search, you will find all sorts of squirrel repellants sold, many with confident money-back guarantees. Most of them are made
of …mothballs. In fact, most animal repellents sold are made from either mothballs or coyote urine. I’ve been to many homes at which the homeowner has
placed a great deal of mothballs in the attic – one had fifty pounds of mothballs! – and the squirrels didn’t care. They also don’t respond to coyote
urine. Some people recommend the use of bright lights, strobing lights, or noises. The most common noise deterrents are regular radios and ultrasonic
high-pitch sound emitting devices. Once again, I’ve seen both of these tactics used multiple times to no effect. In fact, the FTC has issued an official
warning against the high-pitch noise machines, stating that they are 100% ineffective and fraudulent.
It’d be nice if a simple product would solve the
problem. That goes for any most any cheap and easy fix for a serious problem. The truth is that repellents rarely work. Go ahead and try every one of
them if you’re not convinced, and then take care of the problem properly when you discover that cheap repellents are pointless.
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Check out my how to catch squirrels page for email examples of squirrel situations from my website readers.
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Please be kind to squirrels! They are intelligent animals, and believe it or not, they definitely have emotions! |
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