Squirrels in the Attic in Stockport, Cheadle and Gatley.

Posted in April 20, 2010 ¬ 1:29 pmh.writerNo Comments »

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The grey squirrel population in the North West U.K. has boomed over the last twenty years to the degee that they have now become a major pest species dealt with by Squirrels in Attic Pest Control

The grey squirrels which we see in our own gardens (Sciurus carolinensis) are not native to the U.K., having been introduced here less than two-hundred years ago from America

Like many members of the family Sciuridae, the Grey Squirrel is a scatter-hoarder; it hides food in numerous small caches for subsequent recovery. Some hoards are temporary, especially those made near the source of a sudden glut of food.

Others are more permanent and are not used until months later. It has been seen that each squirrel makes several thousand of these caches each year. They have very accurate spatial memory for the locations of these caches, and use distant and nearby landmarks to locate them. Smell is used when the squirrel is within a short distance of the target.

The nest of the squirrel is called a dray (or drey) and it is normal for the female to have two litters per year, each of two to four young..

They can be minor pests in the garden, rooting bulbs and eating food intended for birds but can be major pests when they come into our properties.

It is increasingly common for Trafford Pest Control to call out to houses where a dray has been constructed in a loft or attic space.

Squirrels are rodents and as such have teeth which never stop growing; the actual word rodent derives from the Latin word rodere which means to gnaw and this they do very well indeed.

It is rare to visit an attic space where a dray has been found and find that they have not chewed electric cables, indeed it is estimated that up to 40 percent of fires without an obvious cause may have been started by rodents chewing wiring.

Unfortunately they can also chew through water-pipes, especially with the recent trend towards plastic piping.

As if that is not enough, many household insurance policies specifically exclude damage caused by vermin so if a squirrel floods your home by gnawing through a pipe in the loft you may find yourself without any insurance cover.

Removing Squirrels in Loft requires a professional, often because the law regarding squirrels is complicated and ever changing. You cannot simply buy a packet of poison from your local hardware and deal with them that way as you would be breaking the law.

Furthermore you cannot trap them and relocate them some distance from your home, quite apart from the fact that removing a squirrel from the area of its food stores probably cause it do die of starvation, it is also breaking the law under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 under which it is illegal to release a grey squirrel in Britain.

That pertains also to rescuing and/or rehabilitating and releasing injured squirrels.

In the vast majority of cases trapping is the the only option and this must be done in a specified manner with routine, timed inspections of the traps.