Battle lines drawn, OT but relatable to many - picture very heavy

Zippylip

Descended into squirrel hell here.  About 2 years ago I had some major hail damage at the house so as part of the repair I redid the porch (removed the walls & screens & went full on open).

The original closed porch, while ugly it was at least effective in repelling most living creatures:



After the redo:



Now for about a year & a half all was well until this winter I began hearing the distinctive scratching sounds of squirrels up in the boxed out area that covers the soffit of the old roof line (before the prior owners added the porch).  But being winter I just couldn't muster enough energy to care figuring I'd leave it until the weather warmed up.  That day came Saturday which began by adding wire mesh to all the gaps between the trim:



the porch is 24 feet long, this was a project:



Next, above two of the support beams are little openings that allowed the squirrels to enter/exit into the side walls which was only a short stroll to their nest under the soffit.  Many times I watched one run up the far post & disappear into the hole at which point I could hear him running down the interior of the wall, across the 24 foot stretch of soffit covering & down the near wall & pop his head out above the corresponding beam just to F with me.  This is the outside of the near beam:




and this is the area I had to jam up:



Thinking I was done after an all day effort, I enjoyed a beer.  I then enjoyed watching a squirrel run down the outside corner post.  Little bastard had another entry point there, about an inch wide.  I look up there & can see some white cottony stuff sticking out so I get out my mini grabber & begin pulling this material out.  By the time I was done there was about a shopping bag's worth of chair cushion & other rodent bedding type material that little prick dragged up there (only then I realized what had become of one of my cushions that was shredded a couple weeks ago). 

Anyway this corner was too small to get mesh or any reasonable barrier in there so I shot one entire can of "Great Stuff" in there. 




Once I was wrapped up I went in for the night, about 7pm, tired as hell.  Within 5 minutes I heard all holy hell break loose in the boxed out soffit, wood grinding, scratching; realized then he was gonna chew a hole through some bare wood but was too tired to do anything further, plus there was nothing I could do.  Figured I'd come out in the morning & find a hole somewhere & he'd be gone.

Sure enough, when I came out this morning the first thing I saw was this pile of shredded wood:



Looked up & saw this:



That's half inch pine he chewed through without much of a problem 'cept for the wire mesh.  But, no sign of him or a hole big enough for him to have squeezed through so I'm thinking he's a corpse up there unless there's yet another entry point I still haven't located though given the effort he put in to claw through the wood I'm thinking not.

I know from many years of trapping these little bastards that some will over exert to the point of death; I've set traps at night to find a dead squirrel by morning in there.  They try so hard to escape they just keel over.  While some are docile & just wait to be released (I release them over 10 miles away), others do what this one in the below picture did, this area shown was covered in grass on Saturday, caught one some time that night & this is what it looked like by Sunday morning, a torn up area about 3 feet in diameter & a couple inches lower, & they do this from inside the cage, amazing animals:






Anyway, all is silent up there for the first time since around January.  I'm thinking he's likely dead up there & there he will stay, I'll deal with the stench for a week or two rather than dismantle all my work to get the wood down only to have to rebuild it all. 

What an ass-ache

 

Darby_Crenshaw

how can you tell the difference between the stench of a dead squirrel in your rafters on a hot day, and your own armpits?

anyway, looks like your work is done.  you could cover up some of that mesh with trim if you wanted to hide it, but i understand your design aesthetic tilts more toward shabby chic. 

must say thought that i am saddened by your glee at killing god's creatures.  perhaps the vegetarian mentions on your tinder profile are only for appearances' sake.

also.  eff steven

Raymont

Hmm. Looks like he is taking the fight with the squirrels personal this time...

bud812

Dem damn tree rats.

Zippylip

Darby_Crenshaw said:

how can you tell the difference between the stench of a dead squirrel in your rafters on a hot day, and your own armpits?

also.  eff steven

the difference is clear had you been paying attention, I put off a far more delicate bouquet; horrendous nonetheless but delicate.  At least you got the part about the other rodent right

fishlessman

seems you catch one and two more move in. my 0.1 acre lot has 1 cherry tree,just the one tree, last time i trapped i got 36 squirrels in a week and a half

Chubbs

Bastards. I battled a rat the size of a damn kitten in my attic. Not fun and I paid $700 for your wire mesh work

RRP

wondering if the little bastard was actually a she and not a he and she was trying to get to her babies which probably died up there with their mother. tsk tsk tsk
BTW I too have seen the determination of those tree rats with my feeders, but sooner or later I have beaten them and they give up. OTOH a 2 year old squirrel is a rarity so while I think I have beaten them for a summer their offspring are back to start the battle all over,

Darby_Crenshaw

i also would suggest next time consulting the opinion of a design professional.  looks like you may have just emailed a couple idiot friends on that one.

fishless knows how to use the forum's business and social connections to achieve optimum design at a reasonable cost. his porch is only slightly in danger of collapse now, after formerly being under imminent threat of same.

fishlessman

Darby_Crenshaw said:

i also would suggest next time consulting the opinion of a design professional.  looks like you may have just emailed a couple idiot friends on that one.

fishless knows how to use the forum's business and social connections to achieve optimum design at a reasonable cost. his porch is only slightly in danger of collapse now, after formerly being under imminent threat of same.

got an extra 10 years out of it just remember, the railings are just for show

Darby_Crenshaw

did you ever anchor the porch to that post? 

one of the funniest mental pictures i have of any of your posts here (among many) is when you asked about needing to strap or secure the porch to the post below (because otherwise it was just sitting atop it) and i said yes, because there's probably more uplift risk than anything else given your spot on the lake.

and then like a week later, you still hadn't secured it, and you watch the porch lift up and then float back down on top of the post, under a stiff wind

sometimes i actually get one of these questions right!

Zippylip

RRP said:

wondering if the little bastard was actually a she and not a he and she was trying to get to her babies which probably died up there with their mother. tsk tsk tsk

could be, will never know but regardless of gender it was decidedly trying to get out rather than in; as for the babies if any, that's just that many fewer that I'll later have to trap & relocate. 

I was ahead of this thing for about 15 years, I'd get them in the attic or crawl space & then trap for a few weeks, catch & release anywhere from 15 to 25 or more then I'd have peace for a few years until the interlopers from neighboring properties would find their way in then the cycle would repeat.  I haven't trapped in a few years and aggravated the situation by de-walling my porch thus inviting new ones to find new nesting spots. I think I've got some decent defensive positions now but if I know one thing about squirrels, they're fricking brilliant & tenacious & they will get in despite most efforts.

They're like the chainsaw of rodents, highly violent & destructive 

Zippylip

Incidentally but of amusing note for all my relocation years many of them were spent releasing them in the parking lot of my office (about 12 miles from my house).  It never occurred to me that this was an issue.

One day in the middle of an effort I let one go as per usual from the trunk of my car, put the trap on the ground, pop the release & he’s off.  Later that day I happened upon a hive (office women in heated exchange) & heard one exclaim “Damnit someone told me Richard is letting squirrels go in the parking lot, and we ALREADY HAVE AN INFESTATION PROBLEM”.  I chuckled to myself & walked on by; I look nothing like Richard, he was just some other poor wrongfully accused douchebag that rented space in our building & someone really f’d up in their eye-witness account.  Turns out that some of the seemingly 50 squirrels I had let go there over the years had taken up residence in the building next to ours, a residential rental property with the same owner (managed by the woman freaking out).

Oops, hahaha

RRP

You might want to be quiet about the trapping and relocating. That's illegal at least here in IL without a permit. We were overrun one summer with raccoons and a neighbor trapped and relocated a couple dozen. Then some goody two shoes who was feeding the d*mn things loafs of bread got wind and turned him in. He got fined $300. The coon problem persisted so he got the license, but he was required to kill them rather than relocate. THAT really pissed off goody two shoes, but our local zoo appreciated the meat!

Zippylip

Ron, PA law permits certain wildlife to be 'taken' so long as humane & the list includes squirrels.  There are some disposal restrictions.  As for the relocation, it became too difficult anyway so I stopped that (the above incident played large in that).  I'm far more focused now on prevention as I believe if I can keep them out the work necessary to do that will be far less than all the trapping & releasing/calling animal control to pick them up...  No pictures but in addition to the mesh in the porch I believe I identified the access point where they were getting into the attic (a vent with approximately one inch slats); that too got the mesh along with two crawl space vents. 

They'll usually make their assault in late summer early fall as they're jamming their food stockpiles into their nests for the winter.  That's when I'll know if my current efforts were effective. 

yljkt

Steel wool packed into tight areas will stop the chewing. And the only place for the trap with a squirrel inside is a full 50 gallon rain barrel. YRMV of course...

Dobie

Time to get all Chris Kyle on their ass. 

DaveRichardson

Had them in my attic a few years ago.  I set traps to no avail.  I but out baits that did nothing.  I finally got some ghost peppers, ground them up, and mixed with a bunch of odd and various pepper spices that were older than my oldest child and made some squirrel bombs.

Mental picture....  Near 40-year old with squirrel bombs (pantyhose stuffed grenades) tucked into me belt as I climb up the extension ladder into the attic.  Gagging from the peppers, I've got my mouth and nose covered with a bandana.  Systematically, I am lobbing these squirrel bombs in all corners of the attic, and double-time in the areas that I heard the scratching.  Wife said I looked like a middle-eastern rock-thrower that you see on the TV News every night......

1 week later, no squirrels.  6 weeks later, still no squirrels.  Fast forward to today, about 2-3 years later, still no squirrels.  I guess the squirrel version of the Coconut Telegraph was buzzing about staying out of my attic!

Excellent work on the mesh.  I would have paid someone to do that sh!t!

Focker

Look up BigGreenDave on the other forum for his Brunswick Stew recipe. 

northGAcock

fishlessman

Darby_Crenshaw said:

did you ever anchor the porch to that post? 

one of the funniest mental pictures i have of any of your posts here (among many) is when you asked about needing to strap or secure the porch to the post below (because otherwise it was just sitting atop it) and i said yes, because there's probably more uplift risk than anything else given your spot on the lake.

and then like a week later, you still hadn't secured it, and you watch the porch lift up and then float back down on top of the post, under a stiff wind

sometimes i actually get one of these questions right!

i fixed the one 12 foot post that was falling out in the wind, the other three still free float    i actually met the guy that built the deck since. he was an older french guy out in the lake in a boat screaming to me "i do dat, i do dat" took me 5 minutes before i figured out he built the deck. i had thought the 12 foot posts were anchored from the bottom, they are NOT. he just balanced them upright and built a deck on them. the deck is in bad shape, the retaining wall on the lake under it is giving way from lake ice damage, i need to go thru conservation for approval and the town needs to vote on it, a big hassle. watched a guy fix his a few years ago, bales of hay, water pumps in the footing trench, has to be done in december when the waters low enough...your friend bob would have a stroke just looking at it

Thatgrimguy

I can definitely relate!! I had an epic battle with rats at my last place that destroyed my house!! I ended up selling the darn place (and lost my arse too because I disclosed the issue)