LESLIE: Darryl in Maryland, you’ve got The Money Pit. What can we do for you today?
DARRYL: Hi. I was giving you guys a call because I have a very unusual problem.
TOM: Alright.
LESLIE: OK.
DARRYL: The problem is that I seem to have squirrels running in between my floors.
TOM: Hmm. Well, stop throwing your walnuts down there, Darryl. (all chuckle)
DARRYL: I think what happened is that previously I had a shingle issue …
TOM: OK.
DARRYL: … where I replaced the facing board and – just recently – and I was able to repair that. But I think what might have happened is that they might have either left one of their young here or they found another access point …
TOM: Hmm.
DARRYL: … to get in through the overhang.
TOM: So right now, do you think you actively have the squirrel up there?
DARRYL: I notice that there’s very little activity …
TOM: OK.
DARRYL: … but it seems to only happen like at certain times of the day; like …
TOM: Alright.
DARRYL: … in the afternoon or something like that.
TOM: Well, a couple of things. First of all, you want to make sure you do thoroughly examine the outside of your house to try to figure out a place where the squirrel is getting in and deal with that.
DARRYL: OK.
TOM: If you can find an obvious access place, one of the things that you might want to do is put a Havahart trap at the edge of that and bait that with food. You know, apples work very, very well. Also a good idea, if you use one of those Havahart traps, to wire the apple in. Take a sturdy piece of wire …
LESLIE: So they don’t grab it and run. (Darryl laughs)
TOM: Well, actually they are pretty tricky, you know. But if you wire it to the bottom of the trap by taking maybe a hanger wire or a piece of picture hanging wire and sort of thread it in there so it’s sort of tied off through the trap …
DARRYL: Uh-huh.
TOM: … then they’re a lot less likely to get out of that. And of course, you’ve got to check the trap everyday to see if you’ve caught them and then you can take them out to the woods and let them go on their merry way …
DARRYL: Gotcha.
TOM: … where they can go haunt someone else’s attic. (Darryl and Leslie chuckle) If you can get into the attic space and get access to that, another thing that you should do is throw some moth balls around because that tends to dissuade them as well.
DARRYL: OK. I never thought of that. OK.
TOM: Alright. Well give it a shot. Darryl, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
DARRYL: Thanks, guys.
Leave a Reply