Jim's Squirrel Battle - How NET Syndrome is hurting our community
In a quiet subdivision in the suburbs of Cincinnati, the world is coming awake. The only noise to be heard is the exhaust from the 2005 Dodge Caravan chucking weekly shoppers out the window, never quite hitting their target on the driveway. Jim knows he will have to search the culvert for this week’s unsolicited trash deposit.
Soon the soft rhythmic sound of enamel cutting through pine 2x4s echoes in the previously silent bedroom at six-forty-five in the morning. The sun rose no less than a half hour ago and Jim is just trying to hold onto 15 more minutes of sleep before the cacophony of alarms start triggering on his phone. A sudden thud followed by frantic scratching and scampering wake him fully. This means war!
For over two weeks now, Jim has greeted the day with anger and hatred in his heart. For the 16th straight day he grumbles as he slips on the Dave Mathew’s shirt he has had since college and stumbles into the kitchen to get the Keurig started on his mountain blend.
He grabs his cup of brew, his phone, and lets the dog out. As he sits on his porch letting the dog wander off to do what dogs do in the morning, he sees an eastern grey squirrel delicately perched on his gutter guard chewing on a pea green colored ping pong ball sized object. He opens google and starts typing… “How to remove squirrels from my attic”.
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If I am spending my money wisely, Jim should be looking at the home page of HuntsmanWildlife.com by now. And instead of reading a sales pitch on why he should be hiring us as a wildlife professional to solve his squirrel problem, I am going to do him one better. I will tell him WHY he ended up with a squirrel in his attic in the first place.
Like most homeowners in the Cincinnati area, Jim suffers from NET syndrome. NET (Not Enough Time) syndrome is a condition that leads to procrastination, avoidance, and denial. These symptoms are often caused by outside factors such as work, school, family, and other time consuming factors in life.
Every year he saw the branches from the big walnut tree in his front yard creep closer and closer to the roofline, and every year it was put on his “list” to be trimmed back but he never got around to it. Now that the branches are within 6 feet of the roof the eastern grey squirrels in his neighborhood have no problem making the daring leap from branch tip to roof and back again, making cirque du soleil acrobats jealous.
And when the storms came through in late April, Jim was pulling long hours at work and did not notice the wind damage to the gutter guards that lifted the flap of just two shingles. Those two shingles exposed the unfortunate choice of the company that replaced the roof three years ago that decided to omit a drip guard. Without that drip guard in place the sheeting on the roof and the facia board make a perfect inch and a half gap that took only minutes for the adult female squirrel to enlarge with her ever growing incisors, allowing her unfettered access to the attic space.
Once in the attic space, the 18 inches of blow-in insulation becomes a bounty of nesting material for the squirrel to start building her new home. After spending the morning preparing her birthing site, she pops outside to scavenge up some much needed food. Carrying around a womb packed full with 6-8 developing pups takes a lot of calories and the not quite fully formed walnuts on the tree are not filling that caloric need.
The female squirrel investigated the yard and noticed the half dozen bird feeders placed in the backyard. With black sunflower seeds, millet, cranberries, and suet, this human provided bounty will be more than enough to feed her and to feed her family of pups once they are born. But Jim never notices he is going through almost three times as much bird food as he was weeks ago. NET syndrom rears its ugly head again.
And now we reach the present day in our story, where Jim reaches out to us at 7:00 in the morning on a Sunday after finding us online and he schedules his inspection. The appointment is scheduled and Jim goes back to glaring at his new found enemy.
A few days later we arrived and started inspecting the home and property grounds. What do you think we told Jim?
Well, in addition to explaining to him our trapping and removal program, we hit a few key points:
Trim the branches of the walnut tree back so there is at minimum a six foot span between the tips of the branches and your roofline. (Jim tells us he “has been meaning to do that”)
Once the animals are removed, call a contractor to repair the damaged shingles, install a drip guard on the roof’s leading edge, and repair the gutter guard. (Jim says “I didn't even know that happened '' and makes a mental note to send a strongly worded email to the company that replaced the roof.)
Move all food sources such as bird feeders a minimum 25-30 feet from the structure as to not attract wildlife to the close proximity of the home. In the summer, cease feeding as birds do not require supplemental food. (Jim gets wide eyed and states “that explains why i am buying so much bird seed lately”)
In the fall, when nut and fruit bearing trees drop their bounty, clean up and dispose of the nuts and fruits to avoid creating an unintentional locally sourced farmers market for wildlife in your front yard (Jim chuckles and nods his head understandingly)
Less than two weeks later, Jim is squirrel free and sleeping in on Sunday’s again. After following our advice, the threat of unwelcomed squatters in his attic are no more. Now if only he can figure out why the weekly shopper guy can't hit the driveway.
Till next time… See ya folks.