How to Get Squirrels Out of the Attic & Your House

One of the most common jobs that I deal with as a nuisance wildlife control professional is a case of squirrels in the attic. It is not an easy thing to take care of! The problem is that there are almost always baby squirrels in the attic, along with an adult female. The young are helpless in a nesting area of the attic for the first 6 weeks of life, and can't be trapped. They must be removed by hand - you or the wildlife technician you hire must go into the attic and remove the babies by hand. If you wait longer than 6 weeks after birth, then the young are almost adult sized, and run all around just like the mother squirrel, in which case they can be trapped and removed or excluded all the same way. In the below photo you see some 1-week old squirrels in an attic nest, and then some 7-week old squirrels. They grow quickly!

Many people who want to know how to get squirrels out of the attic believe that they must set squirrel traps in the attic, as seen below. I took the below photo many years ago, back when I didn't know what I was doing. The truth is that it's very hard to trap squirrels in the attic, and they almost NEVER enter cage traps inside the attic. I just got lucky in this case. Most of the time, my traps in the attic caught nothing. Plus, attic trapping is dangerous, because it's hard to check the traps, and the last thing you want is an animal suffering in a trap for a long time.

Now the below case is more like it. See, if you want to know how to get rid of squirrels in your house, you have to find out how they are getting inside the house in the first place! It might be something like a flimsy soffit screen, as seen below. Wherever it is, it's easy to mount a special repeater trap right on the hole, and catch the target squirrels as they vacate the house - which they do several times each day - for food and water. You can also set a one-way exclusion door to let them get out, but not back in. Just be sure that the home is squirrel-proof, and that there's no other place to get in, or you'll be asking me how to get squirrels out of the ceiling yet again.

Once all the squirrels are out, you want to seal the entry point(s) shut permanently. If you don't, new animals will move into your attic soon. All repairs should be made with steel, so that rodents can't gnaw their way back in. The squirrels living there gave it an odor that might attract new wildlife quickly. There's also the matter of the mess the squirrels have left behind in the attic, which often must be cleaned up.

Hi, We've had that squirrel in our attic (not properly attic, it's the roof of our carport) for about 3 weeks. I wanted to frighten her away, but my wife kept saying that she was sure she was pregnant, and let's just not bother her. But I really wanted to get rid of her because of her chewing on the woods. So tonight, after reading your site, I decided the best option would certainly be to remove the nest and hoping that without nest she would go build another one elsewhere. So I climbed on my ladder and opened the roof (I could easily reach the nest by lifting one of the metallic sheaths bordering the roof) and proceeded to dump her nest into a lawn refuse bag, with her watching me saying nothing. And suddenly I hear squeaking from inside the bag. My heart made a bump and my legs softened as I went to the car for the torchlight to see what I was doing. I started to empty the refuse bag into a smaller cardboard box, little by little, and I saw a tiny little pink thing moving her front legs and squeaking. My legs softened still more, but somehow I climbed back on the ladder and pushed the little baby squirrel rather vigorously into what remained of her nest, or at least close by. I got down and continued checking the contents of my bag and I found three more babies whom I put again like their brother (without much care) into what remained of the nest. Then, not hearing any more squeaking and not seeing any more pinky babies, I proceeded to put her nest back into the attic (not at the original location close to the top of the roof, I was afraid to do so and hurting the babies, but close to the bottom of the roof, where her entrance to the roof is and it was easier to deliver the ruins of her nest), thinking that maybe, in the dark, she will be able to find and drag her four babies back into the original nest and then use the branches I just gave her back to rebuild her nest. Now I can hear her working, and some squaking, I think they've moved the entire family to the bottom of the roof where I put the nest back.

Now, of course, after seeing these tiny defenseless creatures, I feel bad and hope they're all right and nothing will happen to them and they will grow healthy and live happy ever after. I hope the trauma is not too big, I hope I didn't hurt anybody, and I hope the mother will be able to take good care of her family. My wife now is just laying peanuts by the entrance of the roof. Now I guess that what we'll do is hope that when they grow older, they leave this place and then we'll shut all the entrances. That's not the best roof, but that's the roof we have.

Thanks for your website that taught me that four babies is pretty much what to expect, and that reminded me to try to treat creatures in a humane way. Maybe without reading you I would have just drowned the poor babies hoping that the mother would die of sadness. Do you have an idea what I should expect now, given what they endured, with respect to the welfare of their family? Please answer.

Francois - Wow! You're really nice and humane! That's rare. It's also rare for someone to find and remove a squirrel nest with babies. Kudos! You could have, if you wanted to, kept the babies out and given them to a wildlife rehabber and sealed the garage ceiling shut to keep her out permanently. But if you want what's best for the welfare of the squirrels and are okay with having them live in the ceiling, just let them be for about 7 more weeks, then they will be old enough to survive outside of the ceiling. You can set a one-way exclusion door on the entry hole and let them all get out, then seal the hole(s) permanently so that no more get inside in the future. - David

The point here is that it's often a very difficult job to get squirrels out of your attic and there's many considerations. If you want to know how to get squirrels out of your house, any part of it, from the ceiling to the walls, you should know that you want to hire a competent company who can demonstrate true wildlife knowledge, and promise to go in the attic or cut open the walls to get out the baby squirrels. That's the only way it can be done, unless you want to wait until the young grow older by 6-7 weeks. Another important step in the how to get squirrels out of the ceiling or walls process is to find out how they get into the house in the first place, and seal those entry points shut permanently, as stated. That's how you get rid of squirrels in the attic!