Sure, squirrels may look cute and furry when they are scurrying around the park. But when they decide to move into your attic, it’s anything but cute. Squirrels can do all sorts of damage to your home and getting rid of them can be a huge hassle. 

Here are a few ways squirrels can damage your home or property, and what you can do to keep them out for good. 

Damage from Squirrels in Your Attic 

Squirrels are troublesome animals that can cause an array of damage to your attic — many of it unexpected. Here are a few ways these nuisance creatures are known to cause damage. 

Chewing

Squirrels will chew through electrical wires, water lines made of PVC, your personal belongings, and anything else worthwhile getting their teeth on. 

Initially to get into your attic, they may chew their way in. It only takes a hole an inch wide for a squirrel to move in. If it’s a tight fit, they’ll chew away the edges to make the small opening even bigger.  

Squirrels may also chew on your personal belongings stored in your attic. Squirrels like to make nests from soft materials, such as clothes, blankets, and paper. Squirrel nests are essentially a large pile of flammable materials and pose a serious fire hazard when built in vents or chimneys. 

Squirrels are also notorious for chewing on electrical wires. You may be wondering, why wires, they aren’t food. Squirrels will chew on wires to sharpen and strengthen their teeth. Exposed wires can cause unexplained service interruptions, start fires, and are extremely dangerous to touch. 

If you didn’t think that was enough things squirrels can chew through, there’s more. Squirrels have also been known to chew through PVC piping. Most water lines in homes are made of PVC, resulting in damaged water lines in attics. 

Health Risks 

Besides physical damage to your home and attic, squirrels can also pose serious risks to human health. 

Squirrels can carry diseases and risks such as, 

• Lymes disease through Ticks 
• Fleas
• Mites 
• Rabies 
• Salmonellosis 
• Leptospirosis 
• Tularemia 

Squirrels can transmit these serious health risks through physical transmission, like bites or scratches, or they can leave them behind in their feces or nests. It is important to correctly clean up from squirrels in your attic. The best way to sanitize and disinfect the area is by trusting the professionals at Wildlife X Team®! Our experts use safe and effective chemical solvents to clean up messes left by squirrels. Our experts will humanely remove squirrels from your attic, put prevention measures into place to prevent squirrels from coming back, and fix any damage left behind by squirrels. 

Call us and start living squirrel free today!