Squirrel Trap, What To Do When A Squirrel Nests in Your Home

Squirrel Trap, What To Do When A Squirrel Nests in Your Home – The grey squirrel population in  North West England has rocketed over the last 20 years to the degee that they are now a major pest species.
The grey squirrels which we see in our gardens (Sciurus carolinensis) are not native to Britain, having been imported here less than 200 years ago.
Like other members of the family Sciuridae, the Grey Squirrel is a scatter-hoarder; it hoards food in lots of small caches for subsequent recovery. Some caches are temporary, especially those made near the site of a sudden surplus of food.
Other caches are more permanent and are not used until many months later. It has been observed that each squirrel makes several thousand hoards each season. The squirrels have very accurate spatial memory for the positions of these hoards, and use distant and nearby landmarks to retrieve them. Smell is used once the squirrel

is within a short distance of the cache.
The nest of the grey squirrel is called a dray (or drey) and it is usual for the female to have two litters per year, with two to four babies each.
They are minor problems, rooting up bulbs and taking food intended for birds but can be major pests when they come into our houses.
It is increasingly common for pest controllers to attend homes where a nest has been constructed in a loft or attic space.
Squirrels are true rodents and as such have teeth which never stop growing; the word rodent coming from the Latin ‘rodere’ meaning ‘to gnaw’ and this they do extremely well.
It is rare to enter a roof space where a dray has been made and find that they have not chewed electrical wiring, indeed it is estimated that forty percent of fires without an obviously attributable cause may be started by rodents chewing wiring.
Unfortunately they can also chew through water-pipes, especially with the modern trend towards plastic piping.
As if that wasn’t enough, many household insurance policies specifically exclude damage caused by rodents so if a squirrel floods your home by chewing through a pipe in the attic you may find yourself without insurance cover.
Removing squirrels requires a professional, not least in as much as the law regarding squirrels restricts your options. You cannot simply buy a packet of rat poison from your local store and deal with them that way as you would be committing a criminal offence.
Furthermore you cannot trap them and move them some distance from your home, not only would removing a squirrel from the area of its food caches would probably condemn it to death by starvation, it is also a criminal offence under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 under which it is illegal to release a grey squirrel in Britain.
That pertains also to rescuing, and releasing injured squirrels.
In the majority cases trapping is the option of choice and this must be done in a specified manner with routine, timed inspections of the traps.
Trapped squirrels are then despatched humanely.

That concludes this article Squirrel Trap, What To Do When A Squirrel Nests in Your Home