No one thinks of squirrels when thinking about invasive pests and the damage they can do to your health and your property. They’re too cute even to consider such a thing. But the truth is, like all rodents, squirrel presence on your property presents a multitude of issues. They chew up wiring, carry infectious diseases, and will gleefully take a chunk out of your finger if you try to pet them. Like most other adorable wildlife, they’re lovely from a distance but a problem on your property.
Squirrels are medium-sized rodents with adults growing to between 14 and 16 inches long, including a (usually) bushy tail. Their fur can vary from grey to brown, with light grey undersides. Squirrels are amazing climbers; you can often spot them collecting and storing nuts.
Let’s look at what part squirrels play in the environment around us, what damage they can do, how you can motivate them to stay off your property, and where to find quality pest control in the Fairfax area if your prevention efforts fail.
The Role Squirrels Play In Our Environment
The biggest benefit squirrels offer to our environment is directly connected to the activity they’re most famous for. Squirrels gather and bury nuts, and thanks to their absentmindedness, they forget where exactly they’ve buried them. In that effect, they’re nature’s gardeners.
Squirrels also have a craving for truffles, a fungus that grows underground. Because of that, it doesn’t have a chance to spread its spores using wind like other mushrooms. Squirrels dig up and eat truffles, spreading truffle spores with their feces.
Besides helping trees and mushrooms grow, squirrels play an important part in nature’s food chain by being a reliable snack for foxes, wolves, coyotes, and numerous birds of prey.
Squirrels Can Be Very Problematic For Property Owners
As beneficial as they are to the environment, a proliferation of squirrels and other types of rodents on your property can become a serious problem.
Like all rodents, squirrel teeth grow continuously. They have to gnaw on things around them to their length down to a manageable size. The damage to house siding, electrical wiring, and insulation, as well as HVAC equipment in their vicinity, is a direct result of that.
Squirrels will defend themselves against a perceived threat and bite if you try to hold or corner them. They carry and spread tularemia and ringworm, and the parasites that often hitchhike on squirrels, like ticks, and fleas, can transmit a long list of diseases of their own.
Five Practical Squirrels Prevention Tips
Getting squirrels to leave once they set up camp on your property can be pretty complicated so let’s look at how you can make your place unattractive to them in the first place.
- Close up gaps and openings in the outside walls.
- Put screens on vents.
- Make sure there is a screen or grate on the chimneys.
- Trim grass and bushes around the house.
- Cut down tree branches that might give squirrels pathways to your roof.
Squirrels are perfectly content staying outside most of the year, but when the weather turns colder and food availability runs low, your house starts looking pretty good to them. Make sure to initiate the above prevention methods by the time the cold season rolls around.
The Best Way To Keep Squirrels And Other Wildlife Away
At SPRK Pest Solutions, we don’t believe in one fit all pest control approach. We tailor our rodent control methods to each situation, providing safe and eco-friendly solutions to the pests that are ransacking your home and property.
If you’re struggling to control squirrels on your Fairfax property, contact us today! We’ll keep squirrels and other rodents out of your Fairfax home!
