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[RedTop]

@Judaline 

Squirrels are simply rodents with bushy tails.  Have one encounter with them and you will not be excited to have squirrels living nearby!

After my Papaw retired, he took up feeding squirrels as his hobby; ground squirrels and gray squirrels.  In the 15 years after he retired, he had his "pets" trained to come when he whistled, and they would take peanuts from his hand, his shirt pocket, would sit on his shoulder, legs, arms of his chair, and eat the peanuts.  The squirrels would come to the kitchen window where he sat, to wait for treats.  The grandkids thought Papaw was The Squirrel Whisperer!  

Papaw died; Mamaw had never taken an interest in feeding the squirrels, and was grieving too hard to even think about them, but those rodents had been hand-fed for 15 years and had a routine they expected to continue!

The rodents chewed their way into the house; thru the eaves into the attic, and thru the floors from the crawl space.  It went from Mamaw thinking she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, to waking up to squirrels on her bed, squirrels on her kitchen table, squirrels hanging on the lace curtains in the dining room, and a squirrel nest in her sleeper sofa!  

We got her out of the house for an extended period of time and let D-con do its thing; boxes and boxes and boxes of D-con.  The damage to the house was unreal, and eventually we had to move her into a mobile home because the house was structurally unsafe.

[granddi]

@RedTop crazy story!

[Judaline]

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@RedTop wrote:

@Judaline 

Squirrels are simply rodents with bushy tails.  Have one encounter with them and you will not be excited to have squirrels living nearby!

After my Papaw retired, he took up feeding squirrels as his hobby; ground squirrels and gray squirrels.  In the 15 years after he retired, he had his "pets" trained to come when he whistled, and they would take peanuts from his hand, his shirt pocket, would sit on his shoulder, legs, arms of his chair, and eat the peanuts.  The squirrels would come to the kitchen window where he sat, to wait for treats.  The grandkids thought Papaw was The Squirrel Whisperer!  

Papaw died; Mamaw had never taken an interest in feeding the squirrels, and was grieving too hard to even think about them, but those rodents had been hand-fed for 15 years and had a routine they expected to continue!

The rodents chewed their way into the house; thru the eaves into the attic, and thru the floors from the crawl space.  It went from Mamaw thinking she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, to waking up to squirrels on her bed, squirrels on her kitchen table, squirrels hanging on the lace curtains in the dining room, and a squirrel nest in her sleeper sofa!  

We got her out of the house for an extended period of time and let D-con do its thing; boxes and boxes and boxes of D-con.  The damage to the house was unreal, and eventually we had to move her into a mobile home because the house was structurally unsafe.

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OMgosh. Horrible! I have a guy who sees me throwing bread to the birds. He comes in and takes most of it, and then comes to my patio door and throws his head against the glass. It's my signal to give him something and I usually do. I didn't know what brats they were!! I've heard all kinds of things-like squirrels are just mice with fur. Our house isn't brick but I'm wishing it was. 

[judianne]

Squirrels chew because that's how they sharpen their teeth !

[kindred cats]

Encourage your neighbors to feed the squirrels so they go there.  

[RedTop]

@granddi @Judaline 

It was crazy living from early fall 1976 into early summer of 1977!  Everything inside my grandparents house was in some way affected by the squirrel invasion.  

All of the curtains were shredded, the nest in the sleeper sofa was big enough for a  basketball and full of acorns, leaves, pine needles, crochet thread and scraps of fabric from Mamaw's craft projects, the mattresses upstairs were destroyed and left in chunks, there were nests in the dressers and chest of drawers up there.  Squirrels chewed and messed on the towels and sheets inside the cabinet in the bathroom, chewed on paper towels and toilet paper, as well as bars of soap.  They ate on everything in the pantry except for canned stuff and whatever was in a jar; noodles, rice, crackers, cookies, had all been chewed open and devoured.  A new electric stove had to be bought as squirrels ate the wiring, chewed the linoleum on the floors, ate the vinyl covering off the recliners, etc.  The damage was truly unreal.  

Papaw had fun feeding and taming the squirrels for years, and loved the new babies; he spent a small fortune on sacks of peanuts over the years, and had no clue what a nightmare his hobby would turn into after he died.  We spent a small fortune on D-con, and fixing/replacing items in the house, but in time the old house succumbed to the damage we couldn't see and Mamaw had to move into a safer structure.   

I do not look at squirrels or deer as cute; they are rodents, same as mice and rats.

[sabatini]

@RedTop, that is seriously one of the worst stories I've ever heard! What a nightmare.

[laluzdelmundo]

@RedTop Ooooh! Don't tell @MamaWick that you think deer are rodents!

[RedTop]

@laluzdelmundo 

Oh, she knows my thoughts on deer!

[jubilant]

Wow, what onery little creatures! We have a woods behind us with plenty of nut trees so the squirrels rarely come close to the house.   They do bury their nuts in the yard which hasn't hurt anything so far. 

Groundhogs have been our problem. They are members of the squirrel family. We try to  trap them and relocate them. If that doesn't work, my husband is forced to shoot them. He is a sharp shooter so it is swift with one shot and almost no bleeding so they really never know what hits them. 

Some never come close to the house but a few have. If they do they can eat through our water barrier that  protects the crawl space which is something we have to consider. Luckily we have only had to kill 3 groundhogs in the 30+ yrs. we've lived here.