Squirrel Control in Morris and Sussex County NJ
Squirrel Control and Removal in Northern NJ
Squirrels love to live in attics!
This is one of the most common human-wildlife conflicts. Squirrels are usually arboreal, meaning that they prefer to live in trees. In the wild, squirrels will build a nest made of leaves and twigs high up in a tree.
However, squirrels are very adaptable animals, and thrive in suburban and urban environments.
They are opportunistic, and many have found that the attics of homes in Northern NJ make a great place to live. An attic is like a big old hollow tree to a squirrel, and it has a lot of advantages – it’s dry, warm, and safe from predators.
Squirrels can climb almost anything, and they are spectacular chewers, so they have no problem climbing to a vulnerable area of your roof, and chewing their way in.
Squirrels in Your Attic can do a lot of damage!
Most commonly, the squirrel living in your attic is a female with a litter of baby squirrels. If you have several squirrels in your attic, there’s a good chance that it’s the mother and her young.
The young grow very quickly, and reach adult size in only about six weeks, at which point they start running around the place like crazy, scratching, chewing, and doing the things that squirrels do.
In the photo above, I discovered four squirrels living in an attic in Sussex County NJ – a mother and her three juveniles.
The most common squirrels found in Sussex and Morris County NJ are Eastern Gray Squirrels
The Eastern Gray Squirrels found in the Morris and Sussex county areas of Northern NJ have two litters of young per year, usually a litter in winter, and another in late summer.
Squirrels grow quickly and can do massive damage to your Attic!
Although they are only about one inch long and one ounce heavy at birth, they grow quickly. By about four weeks they’re up and about, and by six weeks, they’re at close to adult size, and by three months or so, they’re pretty much adults.
They will usually stay in the attic up until the time the mother is ready to bear her next litter of young. In the meantime, they’ll chew, urinate, and defecate in the attic.
Squirrels in you attic are more than just noisy!
Most people we speak to in Morris and Sussex County NJ, object to squirrels largely because they don’t like to hear all of the noise and running around up in the attic.
However, squirrels often cause serious problems. Squirrels, like all rodents, chew and gnaw in order to wear down their teeth. They often chew on your house, either the inside or outside. They like to chew on all sorts of surfaces, such as the lead piping around plumbing stacks, vents, wires, and of course wood.
Although I’ve seen several cases in which they’ve chewed through and burst PVC plumbing piping, resulting in flooding or water damage, it’s really the wires that is the big problem. A chewed and exposed electrical wire is a fire hazard. The truth is, a fairly high percentage of house fires of unknown origin are believed to be a result of rodent wire exposure.
How do you get squirrels out of your attic?
First of all, it’s important to acknowledge that there’s no simple easy-does-it product that will get them to leave. Some of the ridiculous products and attempts that I’ve seen over the years include the use of mothballs, ammonia, fox or coyote urine, high-pitch sound machines, strobe lights, and more.
I once entered an attic with 60 pounds of mothballs! The house stunk and the inhabitants got sick – but the squirrels stayed!
One attic had seven of those ultrasonic sound emmitters and the squirrels didn’t care at all. There’s a lot of gimmicks and old wive’s tales out there, but the only real way to get squirrels out of the attic is to physically remove them – such as in live traps.
How to Trap and Remove Squirrels from your North New Jersey Home!
The best way to ensure that you’ll permanently take care of your squirrel problem is to trap and remove the squirrels. You can set squirrel-sized cage traps on the roof near the entry holes, but there’s a chance that you’ll catch a non-target squirrel.
The best way to permanently remove them is to mount a trap right against the hole that the squirrels are going in and out of. Squirrels are active primarily during the morning and evening, but they go in and out of the house several times each day, as they exit to forage for food and water, and they sometimes return with food to store.
If you mount a trap right on their hole, you’ll catch them as they come out. Use a repeating type trap like the one shown, and you can catch them all at one time!
Install One-way Squirrel Doors
Another effective and humane way to get the squirrels out is to mount a special one-way door on the squirrel’s hole. The one-way exclusion door has a tension flap that allows the squirrel to exit, but not re-enter. It’s just like the repeating trap, but with an open end. A one-way door is great at getting them out so long as they have no other ways of getting back in.
Sometimes a house will have many holes and open areas that the squirrels can use. A one way door isn’t very effective if a squirrel can just use another area to get back in! Furthermore, it may not be a good idea to do this in a house with a lot of wood trim, because a squirrel might go nuts chewing the house to try to get back in.
Squirrel Proof Your Home!
Squirrels are persistent. They also leave behind a strong squirrel pheromone scent. If you’ve had squirrels in your attic, even if you get rid of them, new squirrels will smell that squirrel smell and try to live in your house in the future.
In order to permanently solve any squirrel problem, you’ve got to make sure that your house is 100% squirrel-proofed. This means making sure that all roof vents have a heavy steel screen intact, all of the plumbing stacks are screened off (sometimes the pipes are open inside the attic), all of the ridge cap plugs are intact, the gable vents are screened, the soffits are intact, etc etc.
All repairs should be performed with steel and bolts, so that the squirrels can’t chew through the repairs.
Clean up Your Attic after the Squirrels are removed!
As mentioned, when squirrels live in an attic, they poop and pee a lot. They can leave large amounts of droppings and urine in an attic. It’s not just unsightly or bad-smelling – it could potentially pose a health risk.
Most droppings grow mold over time, and most droppings contain salmonella. Squirrels may urinate or defecate on the items you store in the attic, or they might even chew right through the drywall. The urine and the fur grease that the squirrels leave behind is a potent lure to other animals, both predators and other squirrels.
Sometimes a raccoon will break into an attic that has a squirrel scent. Or other squirrels will enter, looking for a proven place to live, or a mate. It’s a good idea to clean up, remove, decontaminate and deodorize the attic.
Assure Pest Control is a Professional Squirrel Removal Service in Morris and Sussex County NJ!
The safest and most effective way to get squirrels out of your home is to hire a Squirrel removal specialist in Northern NJ.
The professionals at Assure Pest Control cover the entire Northern NJ areas including Sussex and Morris county.
If you have any pest or animal issues contact us for a free consultation at (973) 525-6418 or simply complete the form on this page and we will contact you.