The traits that make squirrels fun to watch outside—their playfulness, cleverness, and agility—can quickly turn into a nightmare when they invade your space. At Varment Guard, we understand the real risks of squirrel damage to homes and why reliable and effective removal is crucial.
Let’s go over how squirrels infiltrate your home, what kind of damage they cause, and why professional squirrel pest control is your best option.
Squirrel Damage: What Makes Squirrels Pests?
Here are the most common ways squirrels cause damage and create problems for homeowners:
1. Sneaking Into Your Home
Squirrels are expert acrobats. Unfortunately, these skills serve them all too well when they’re breaking and entering. Squirrels seeking food, water, shelter, or warmth often see houses as a golden opportunity. If they can find the smallest opening up high, they’ll use their unmatched dexterity to reach it.
Usually, a squirrel enters your home through damaged vent screens, uncapped chimneys, or peeling shingles and siding. They can also leap from nearby power lines, tree branches, or high plant life.
If the opening they find isn’t big enough, they’ll simply enlarge it, damaging your home in the process. The hole the squirrel makes could become a passage for other kinds of pests, too. Plus, the squirrel may have other pests, like fleas, on it already.
2. Building Nests
When squirrels build winter nests, they’re relentless. They grab chunks of anything they can find, smashing, munching, and crashing through everything else in the process. Squirrels often slash up insulation, paper products, linens, and fabrics to scavenge nest materials.
The damage squirrels inflict on attics can lead to all kinds of other problems too. Damaged insulation can lead to drafts, other pest problems, and even safety concerns.
3. Gnawing on Cables and Wires
A squirrel’s teeth never stop growing. To keep their growing teeth sharp, they need something to gnaw on, all day every day. If they get into your home, they may end up gnawing on wires or cables. Soft, plastic-wrapped electrical wires are ideal for squirrel teething. They’re brightly colored, soft, and easily accessible.
Squirrels will often chew on wires until they break through the wrapping and expose the wiring itself. Depending on where the wire is, it could spark and start an electrical fire. Even if the wire doesn’t spark, squirrels could cause other expensive and annoying electrical damage.
4. Causing Structural Damage
Squirrels scratch up wooden surfaces, dig through insulation, pull wiring out of walls, break things, and defecate everywhere. The damage they inflict isn’t purely cosmetic. If you store anything in your attic, it could end up as nesting material for these rodents.
Drafts and holes in insulation created by burrowing squirrels could drive up your heating bill or lead to pest infestation. In rare circumstances, these pests could even damage the structural integrity of part of the building itself.
Can Squirrels Damage Your Roof?
Absolutely. Squirrel damage to the roof is one of the most common reasons people search for squirrel pest control. Once squirrels have access to rooflines, they can chew through shingles and soffits and nest between roof joists and insulation.
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DIY Squirrel Control Doesn’t Work & Here’s Why
Trying to get rid of squirrels with DIY repellents or traps might seem like a good idea, but it rarely gets to the root of the problem because:
- Gnaws from squirrels often go unnoticed until major damage occurs.
- DIY sealing of entry points can trap squirrels inside, worsening the issue.
- Many states have regulations on wildlife removal.
Professional squirrel removal, like the services we offer at Varment Guard, ensure entry points are found, sealed, and monitored with humane methods that prevent re-entry.
Keep Your Home Squirrel-Free With Varment Guard
If you're seeing signs of squirrel damage to house structures, walls, or insulation, don’t wait. Varment Guard offers local squirrel removal and exclusion services, attic insulation repair, and humane methods to keep your home safe.
Call today or request service online to protect your home from squirrel-related damage.
