Shut the openings, take away the food, and let them leave on their own. Squirrels are wildlife, and your state decides what you may legally do with a trapped one, so start with exclusion rather than removal. Seal the roof after the animals are out, never while a litter is still inside.
Check Your State’s Rules Before You Trap Anything
Squirrels sit under state wildlife law, not pest control law, and the rules are genuinely different from place to place. Some states let a homeowner handle nuisance animals on their own property. Others require a permit, restrict relocation, or reserve the whole job for licensed nuisance wildlife operators. A few treat certain species as game animals with seasons attached.
So the first step is a search, not a purchase. Look up your state fish and wildlife agency and find its nuisance wildlife page. That page also tells you what is expected if you find a nest of young, which is the situation most likely to turn a simple job complicated.
Poison is not part of this guide. Rodenticides are rarely labeled for squirrels, they kill slowly inside walls, and they move up the food chain into owls, hawks, foxes, and pets.
Why Squirrels Pick Your Attic
A squirrel wants a dry, defensible cavity above ground level, which describes an attic almost perfectly. Their incisors grow continuously, so gnawing is not vandalism, it is maintenance, and soffit corners, fascia boards, gable vents, and roof returns are soft enough to widen quickly.
Timing matters because of how they breed. Most tree squirrels raise young twice a year, once in late winter and again in late summer. Seal an entry during those stretches and you may trap nursing young behind the wood, which leaves you with noise, smell, and a mother chewing a fresh hole to get back in.
The tell is sound. Wait and listen at dawn for several days. Faint squeaking or chirring under the scratching means young are present, and the job waits until they are mobile.
The Exclusion Sequence
- Walk the perimeter with binoculars and mark every gap, chewed edge, loose vent, and gutter-line opening.
- Cut back branches that give a running start onto the roof, a task best done while nobody is nesting.
- Remove the food. Bring in bird feeders or fit a proper pole baffle, secure trash lids, pick up fallen fruit and spilled seed, and stop hand feeding.
- Screen the vulnerable openings with heavy hardware cloth, not plastic mesh or expanding foam, both of which squirrels chew through.
- Leave the main entry open and fit a one-way door so residents can exit but not return.
- Watch for several quiet days, then close the last hole permanently and repair the chewed wood.
- Cap the chimney and screen the dryer and attic vents so the next squirrel finds nothing open.
What Works and What Does Not
| Approach | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Hardware cloth and a one-way door | The actual fix, and permanent when the wood is repaired |
| Pole baffle on a bird feeder | Works, if the pole sits well clear of any launching point |
| Trapping and relocating | Often restricted, sometimes illegal, and hard on the animal |
| Ultrasonic devices | No reliable evidence; animals adjust within days |
| Mothballs in the attic | Using them this way ignores the label and does not repel squirrels |
| Radio or a work light in the attic | Sometimes nudges them along; buys days, not a solution |
When to Call a Wildlife Professional
Bring someone in when you hear young above the ceiling, when an animal is loose in a wall cavity or a chimney flue, when the roofline damage is beyond a ladder and a sheet of hardware cloth, or when your state requires licensed handling. Also call if an animal looks sick or injured, since that is a health and handling question rather than a repair question.
Ask any company two things before hiring: whether the quote includes sealing the entry points, and how they comply with state relocation rules. Removal without exclusion just opens a vacancy.
