January 2013 - Flying Squirrels

Flying Squirrels

The Flying Squirrel has been described as the “perfect pest”. It runs around all night long, causing homeowners to lose sleep. It moves into your house in the winter and leaves in the summer - only to come back just when you think they’re finally gone.

Attempting to trap this critter is almost worthless, unless you’re very good at it, and even then more of the pests return the following year. They squeeze through a hole the size of your thumbnail, and through a linear crack the width of your pinky finger.

Even worse, the entry holes have little, if any, chewing damage, so it’s hard to find the main entryway. They toilet in one spot over and over again, day after day, leaving a strong odor and a stain in the ceiling and soffit. The feces look like bat guano, just to confuse both homeowners and wildlife professionals.

They’re omnivorous, so if you remove one food source, they simply switch to another. Northern and Southern flying squirrels will eat mice, bats, birds, bird eggs, moths, all kinds of insects, fruits, nuts, seeds and will raid bees and hornets nests. They'll even kill and consume other flying squirrels from other colonies—they're true omnivores.

They’re lightening fast and loud, so seeing them is difficult and hearing them seems like an entire army is living in the attic. If you could catch a glimpse of one, you would find that it's multi-colored, so it's difficult to identify or describe - except for its really big eyes, which make it seem larger than it really is.

Jumping 100 to 150 feet is no problem for this pest, so cutting down trees to keep them off your home is absolutely useless.

Yes, flying squirrels can pose a serious challenge, but don't be discouraged; flying squirrel exclusion can be accomplished. The basic idea is to find the main entryway and put a one-way door over it. Then seal up the rest of the house. For flying squirrels, you want to seal up all holes bigger than your thumbnail and any linear crack wider than your pinky finger. Flying squirrels will sometimes take one to three days to leave the house through the exclusion tubes. They have to go through that door and they don't always like to. After 10 days - when you’re no longer hearing them - remove the exclusion tube and seal up the hole. You can use any type of barrier, but the key is to use something that they cannot get through, keeping in mind that flying squirrels will attempt to chew their way back in. Attention to detail is crucial. You can seal up an entire house and leave one small hole in the hardest-to-reach spot and they will find it.

If you have little patience, do not even attempt to do flying squirrel work. Instead, call your local Critter Control office and let them tackle the job.

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