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Welcome to another episode of Peskies Pest Control podcast here in Birmingham Alabama with Michael and Travis. We do this podcast as a community service for Birmingham, Hoover, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Helena, Alabaster, Pelham and all other surrounding areas!
Michael Wienecke
Hey, so today we want to talk about nuisance animals. Referring to squirrels. Squirrels are great climbers, great tubers. They do a lot of destruction on homes, specially the roofline. So we’ve got a lot of a couple videos, couple pictures of showing that. Just want to talk about that.
Travis McGowin
Yeah, you know, we get a lot of calls about, you know, rodents, everybody, I think likes to think that squirrels are so cute. And you know, they scamper around your yard and but nobody really likes to talk about the fact that they can be one of the most destructive rodents that we actually deal with on a very regular basis. And more specifically, a lot of times they like to get into places like attics. So you know, when you’re when your attic gets invaded by them, you can hear them, you know, stomping around at all different hours throughout the day. You know, early morning, late in the afternoon coming and going as they please, I’ve even seen squirrels chew up electrical wiring, which of course, can be a fire hazard. And they just make an overall just nasty mess. But I mean, you can see in these photos, they’re, they’re just destructive creatures. And you know, not only are they making a mess, but when they chew through portions of your attic. Now they’re your shingles, your roofline, things are not functioning like they properly should be. And so now you’ve got moisture issues. And then of course, more rodents come along rats, mice, you know, there’s just a whole slew of things that can cause problems for you when these these rodents come and decide that they want to take residents inside of your attic.
Michael Wienecke
Yeah, and something to look forward. You know, as as a homeowner, just when you’re walking around your house, if you start seeing like you can see right here they have these gutter guards. And you can see where the squirrels have started to and on the end of it, that’s probably took them a while to get through that little area right there. Because that’s pretty thick metal. One thing I’ll say about gutter guards, they are great for keeping debris out for the most part, leaves, pine straw, filtering water, all that but they are, in my opinion, they have not they don’t do a very good job of keeping critters out for this reason right here. So we’ve got gutter guards on a house, and the one you showed before the other picture that chewed into the shingles, the gutter guards are there but there’s nothing protecting that roofline. So you’ve got, you know, the shingles protecting it, once they shoot choose, excuse me, once they to through the shingles, then they are right into the attic and right into your house.
Travis McGowin
Well and on this. I mean, essentially, it looks like the gutter guard really just gave the animal something to stand on while they destroyed your house. I mean, it’s like a nice platform there. And you know, boom, there it is that you right through and get right into your attic and make a nice little house for themselves.
Michael Wienecke
That’s right. So here, this, this particular customer had squirrels going on for probably about a month, two months, did a full evaluation got the squirrels out of the house, and it was time to patch up the house. This is a different house. But this is just one of those style traps that we use. It’s a one way door trap. So as you can see that hole right there into that roofline, we seal that up, put the trap in there. And when the squirrel decides to leave, it’s trapped in a one way door, it can’t go anywhere. And then we can Well there’s the little guy right there that we got out.
Travis McGowin
Yeah, and then typically, you know, a lot of homeowners want to know what what it is that we actually do, you know, with the animal once it’s trapped with the squirrel once it’s trapped, you cannot release these animals close by where you caught them. They’re creatures of habit, they will go in, they will reinvest, essentially, the house that you trap them at, you know, and if they if they want to get in somewhere bad enough, they can be extremely destructive. So you definitely want to take them and remove them from the area so that they don’t try to regain access to the place that they’ve called home for whatever length of time that they’ve been there.
Michael Wienecke
That’s correct. And the big thing about that roofline, like we had said with the gutter guards, Gutter Guards are great, but you’ve got to have some kind of protection between that that shingle and that that plywood and I know we’ve got a good video or picture I’m not sure which one it is of us installing that drip edge around that house and right there so that squirrel has no access back into that roofline.
