Deportation or Relocation?

POE (Point of Entry)

The vent on the other side of the house

Recently, we had a visitor who decided to make a home in our attic.

We could hear him walking around in the attic. At first, he would stay directly over our bedroom area. Then he got braver and moved further because I could hear him walking around over one of the other bedrooms.

No matter what I did to try to scare him off, he stayed.

I'm in no condition to go up into the attic. Besides, we had blown in a lot of insulation in there just a few years back. I didn't want to deal with that mess. Besides, I didn't know what the visitor was... it could have been anything. Ghosts? Nah... Animal(s)? Most likely.

I called several animal control companies and the cost was pretty high to get them to remove an animal. There's an initial cost to come out to inspect and set a trap... outside. None of the companies seemed to want to set the trap inside! Then there's another fee to remove the animal once it's in the outside trap. We'd have to monitor the trap daily and then call to get the company to come out to remove the animal.

I thought long and hard about whether to hire one of these companies to come out to set a trap... but in the end, I could not get myself to pay so much money to take out a single animal. My gut feeling was that it was a squirrel. The opening by our attic fans is only large enough for something the size of a squirrel or smaller could get into.

Well, I had trapped several squirrels in the past who had gotten into our eves by chewing through our roof tiles and the old plywood. The roof was old and it needed a full tear off and replacement which we did less than two years ago. We saw the damage those animals did too. Luckily, it didn't go into the attic itself. But this new intruder got into the attic. Most likely, he crawled in through the attic fan area of our home, on the side of our bedroom. The other side, looks like it's totally sealed off as you can see in the photo above, but the one near the bedroom doesn't seem to have anything covering it. So on Friday, my brother-in-law and I are going to seal that opening up.

I set the trap on the ground near the attic fan area, and in two days, I had a squirrel. I baited this squirrel and the ones in the past with peanut butter. If you ever need to bait a squirrel use peanut butter. Works great!

Once he was inside and stepped on the trap release, the door closes behind him and he's trapped. It's the most humane way to do it. Each of the squirrels I've trapped have been relocated (or deported if you want to look at it that way) into the forest preserves a couple of miles from my home. Once you open up the trap door, they usually run to the nearest tree. This one was no different. I should have taken a photo of the trapped squirrel, but I was too anxious to get him out of the trap and totally forgot to take a photo of him. Sorry!

Afterwards, I had to wonder if I caught the right animal because the trap was set on the ground, not 14 to 15 feet above ground, where the attic fan is located. After several days of listening, I don't hear the sounds of anything walking around up in the attic, so I'm pretty sure we got the right culprit.

Now after we seal off the fan opening on Friday, if I hear any more walking around up in the attic, we'll have to call Ghostbusters, because I don't know how to catch one of those...