When temperatures fall, squirrels start to look for a warm, quiet and safe place to make their nests. This typically ends up being inside your attic or soffits. Female squirrels start to breed around mid-December or early January. They have a gestation period between 42 to 45 days. Female squirrels give birth in the Spring to a litter size of about three.

Most squirrels breed twice a year. The babies will stay in their nest for around 10 to 12 weeks. Once they begin to leave the nest, the mother will teach them to forage for food. This is when roof damage from squirrels starts to become more extensive. This is a result of the mother and babies now damaging the roof. The mother teaches the babies where to chew to gain access. This helps in their survival. Once a baby squirrel has lived in your home, it will not stop trying to get back in. This is one of the reasons that homes must be sealed properly to prevent re-entry.

When our customers call about squirrels on or around their roof, our office will schedule one of our technicians to perform an interior and exterior inspection. The technician will need to see the extent of the damage and if the squirrel has gained access into the home. First, the technician will go into the attic and look for fecal droppings to help determine and verify the species. Specifically, he will be looking for how the animals have gotten inside your attic.  He will also check for chewed wiring, damage to your HVAC, and verify if the insulation has urine or fecal damage. The technician will document his findings with photos which he will email to you at the end of the inspection.

After the interior inspection, the technician will use a ladder to perform an exterior inspection from the foundation of the home to the roof top. The technician is looking for potential and actual points of entry. Often, the main entry points will be found near or on the roof of the home. These entry points will also be documented with photos and emailed to you.

Once our inspection is complete, the technician will provide you with a detailed estimate. This estimate will include all the work that needs to be done to seal your home and also trap and remove the squirrels. Our inspection fee is included in the price of trapping. The inspection itself is a stand-alone fee if that is the only service we do.  All of our wildlife removal and exclusion quotes are good for seven days.

In the event we locate rotted wood, this will be shown to you during our inspection process. A carpenter needs to be contacted to remove rotted wood. Carpentry work to replace rotted wood needs to be performed prior to our exclusion process, so we have a proper foundation to perform our exclusion.

Squirrels are known to carry numerous diseases, though only a few are dangerous to humans. Some of the more common include tularemia, typhus, plague, and ringworm. Such diseases are transmitted through bites or other forms of direct contact with infected squirrels. Tularemia, typhus, and plague have symptoms that mimic the flu and can be deadly when left untreated. While all mammals are capable of getting rabies, squirrels are very rarely rabid.

Other diseases squirrels transmit to humans come from the various parasites they carry. Rife with parasites such as fleas, ticks, and mites, squirrels living in proximity to homes frequently pass these tiny pests on to both humans and pets. Some of the diseases humans can get from the parasites include Lyme disease, Encephalitis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Many of these diseases are fatal when left untreated, so individuals should monitor for symptoms, and seek medical attention after coming in contact with squirrel urine or feces.  Breathing in particles of the animal's excrement is the most common method of disease transmission.  Squirrels can build nests in your attic, soffits and gutters that can contain all kinds of disease that can make you and your family very sick.

Keeping squirrels off your property and out of houses is the best way to ensure the health and safety of both homeowners and their pets. While screening and capping vents and chimneys is effective, entry points like windows, doors, and holes in the roof should also be properly sealed.

Our company does not fix rotted wood or do any major carpentry work. If you have a great deal of carpentry work or repairs that need to be done, we ask that you have a carpenter come out to assess your home and repair those areas first.  Our main focus with exclusion work is sealing up the small gaps, securing vents and patching up the smaller holes. If there is rotted wood around your home, it needs to be repaired before we perform exclusion.  We want to seal your home but we can’t secure any of our work to something that could fall apart or is easily chewed through.

At Apex Wildlife Control, we pride ourselves in providing the highest quality work. We want satisfied customers who know our work is going to hold up and last!

So if you have some unwanted visitors chewing on your roof, give us a call today.  We're here to help!