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- Mar 30, 2010
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]Got hired to help out on a lakehouse project. The client had squirrels chewing through the soffits so they had us put up sheet metal over it.
They do that so they can live inside, I had them in my chimney. You have to make them leave before you block them out or you just started a new problem. If you sheet metal them in they will just chew their way out somewhere else. Ah ahm speaking from experience..
The flying squirrels that decided to live in my chimney really wanted to stay there. I'd block them out with a board and they would chew back in next to the repair. Or if I blocked the hole while they were inside they would freak out and chew their way out of a corner. They had one hole they liked so I uncovered it and covered all the rest really good with hardware cloth backed wood. They happily used the main hole to come and go while I watched them and got a pattern, then I made a wood plug out of a dowel wrapped in duct tape with a 4 inch square of hardware cloth on the end of it and a duct tape flap I could slide the blade of a putty knife in nice and snug. Then I secured the putty knife to the end of my 30 foot Longarm painting pole and waited.
When 2 or 3 left the hole at dusk I would reach the plug up to the hole and slap it in with the putty knife. If there was one trapped inside pretty soon the plug would start bouncing and spinning while he tried to get it out. After a lot of work he would get the plug out and it would fall to the ground.
Then he would go off and do squirrel things in the woods. I would go get the plug and wrap it a little tighter with duct tape and slap it back in the hole. Sometime during the night they would come home and spend a noisy hour trying to get the plug out so they could get back in and eventually they would get it,. I harrassed them like this all summer and towards the end many had already given up and moved out but there was 1 left.
I messed with him and even made the plug easy to push out and watched him do it so I could tell I was only dealing with one squirrel. Then I made a big tight fitting plug with a custom cut piece of hardware cloth screwed to it. On the last night I watched the boy spin, fight and finally push the easy plug out and scurry away. Then I coated the final plug with liquid nails and pushed it in the hole carefully lining up the hardware cloth to fit into the trim corners, then slapped it in good. The next day I painted over it all with a roller and it don't look too bad.
So far it's been 4 years or so and they have not made any progress of getting back in.
