How to Get Rid of Squirrels

Is your yard covered in nuts, berries, and acorns from trees? If so, your place is squirrel heaven! Be sure to rake and remove their food so you’re not party central.

Also, make sure you have tight-fitting trash cans and never leave food sitting out.

Consider protecting your garden with a wire fence and make sure it is buried about a foot into the ground, so the squirrels can’t dig under it.

Natural Squirrel Repellents

• There are also many natural repellents on the market. Some are made with the urine of squirrels’ predators. These are meant to be sprayed around gardens to keep squirrels away.
• Try sprinkling cayenne pepper, pepper flakes, and/or garlic pepper on and around your plants when they are ready to bloom. Squirrels won’t eat anything with cayenne—which you can often buy in bulk. Birds don’t mind the taste.
• One reader claims blood meal sprinkled around the garden soil works.
• For edibles, you may wish to invest in some netting and put that over your plants—just as you would invest in bird netting for berry bushes.
• A dog or cat is a great squirrel chaser if that’s an option.
• Pots are easy to protect with a layer of netting across the top of the pot.
• Or, here’s an expensive pantry solution: Lay aluminum foil across the top of vegetable pots; poke holes for water. The squirrels do not like the shiny reflection.
• Scatter dog or human hair around your garden. One readers shares, “I used to have a problem with squirrels digging up my bulbs. Now, once in the spring and once in the fall, I ask my hairdresser to save a big bag of hair for me. I lightly dig this into the soil. Squirrels can not stand the smell of humans, so they leave the gardens alone.”
• Plant nasturtiums, marigolds, and mustard as a border around your vegetable garden; these plants have an unpleasant aroma.
• Don’t trap and relocate squirrels. This is a losing battle, since the population of squirrels is extremely high. Also, if the animal is a female, there is a high likelihood that you will remove her from babies that depend on her for survival.
• Some readers will feed the squirrels in a different part of the yard so that they don’t eat their garden vegetables or plants. We’ve never tried this approach!
• If you’re really going crazy, explore the idea of a raptor perch and owl nest box for natural predators who will eat them in no time.

Protecting Bulbs from Squirrels

• To protect spring bulbs, cover the surface of the bed with black plastic netting, which is invisible and inexpensive. 
• Or, you can line the planting hole itself with wire mesh “hardware cloth.” Some gardeners have found that planting the bulbs in a handful of sharp, crushed gravel discourages the squirrels. This might help provide better drainage as well.
• If squirrels are especially challenging, try chicken wire. Plant beds with one inch chicken wire and place more wire on top of the bulbs. The plants can grow through the wires, but the squirrels can’t get to the bulbs. Also, consider planting bulbs that squirrels don’t like such as daffodils, ornamental onions (Allium), snowdrops (Galanthus), and grape hyacinths (Muscari). Plus, check out our list of rodent-proof bulbs. 
• Don’t advertise your newly dug bulbs by leaving papery bits of bulb debris in or on the soil. Clean up your act, or better still, try not to lay your bulbs on the ground while you dig the holes to plant them—squirrels will smell their favorite and scamper over.
• If all else fails, just grow tulips in pots as squirrels aren’t attracted to tulips. 

Keep Squirrels Off Bird Feeders

• Birdfood definitely attracts squirrels who love seeds and nuts and berries. Keep the area under your bird feeder as clean as possible.
• Place birdfeeders at least 5 to 6 feet off the ground and 8 to 10 feet away from your house, trees, or structures. (Squirrels can leap that far and even farther.) Some folks use a pulley system. Add squairrel guards or baffles below new birdfeeders. (If squirrels have already used a birdfeeder, they’ll find a way around the baffle.)
• If squirrels are climbing up your birdhouse poles, try rubbing them with Crisco! It doesn’t hurt the birds, and the squirrels slither down!
• Try using safflower seeds. Birds are happy to eat these seeds, but squirrels find them bitter.

Reader Suggestions

Here are a couple of squirrel repellent suggestions that readers sent in:

• Try motion-activated sprinklers, primarily designed to keep cats and rabbits out of gardens, may help scare away squirrels, especially in small yards or at corners of front yards where damage is most likely to occur. However, the presence of numerous squirrels, stray animals, or children may result in overwatering and high water bills if they continually trigger this device.
• Get some mousetraps. Anchor them solidly to the ground in the area where the squirrels have been digging. Cover them with newspaper, and sprinkle a little dirt on top. When a squirrel comes to dig, it will set off the traps. As the mechanism snaps, it will scare and throw dirt at the squirrel. Once it’s scared enough times, it will find another digging area. Be sure to anchor the traps just in case the wind blows the newspaper off of them. If the trap is anchored, the squirrel will not get hurt.

Squirrels Inside the Home

In the autumn, many squirrels try to find shelter and may come inside your home. Avoid this by trimming branches that hang near your roof and place a mesh guard on your chimney. Close up all holes into your home. 

If a squirrel does become trapped in your chimney or attic, you don’t want it to die inside. Make sure it has a way to get out. Hang a rope down through your chimney so it can climb back up to the roof. Or, buy a live trap to get the squirrel out of your house. 

Call an animal control specialist if you’re desperate. Once a squirrel lives in your house for a few weeks, they and all their relatives will be attracted to your attic for at least a couple of years.

Do you have any tips for keeping squirrels away? Let us know below!