Squirrels in Your Attic

Scratching and rolling directly over your bedroom at six in the morning, then again before dark. Annoying is the least of it — squirrels gnaw constantly to wear their teeth down, and in an attic that means your wiring. Here's something useful though: if it's loud in the daytime and silent at midnight, you almost certainly have squirrels rather than mice or raccoons, and that tells us how to handle it.

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How to Tell It's Squirrels

The single best clue is the clock. Gray squirrels are strictly daytime animals with two activity peaks — shortly after sunrise and again in late afternoon. Overnight scurrying points to mice or rats; heavy, slow thumping and vocalizing at night is usually raccoons; scratching in the walls at dusk with no attic noise can be bats.

Where They Get In

Gable and ridge vents, the seam where soffit meets fascia, roof-line construction gaps, chimney chases, and rotted trim. A squirrel needs an opening about the size of a golf ball — and will gladly enlarge a smaller one by chewing.

Chewed Wiring — the Real Risk

Squirrel incisors grow continuously, so they gnaw constantly to wear them down. In an attic that means romex, HVAC lines, and low-voltage wiring. Rodent-chewed wiring is a documented cause of attic fires, and it's the reason we treat this as urgent rather than annoying.

Insulation & Contamination

Nesting flattens and displaces insulation, dropping your R-value where you paid for it most. Add accumulated droppings and urine, and larger infestations become a cleanup and sanitation job on top of the removal.

Two Litters a Year

Central PA gray squirrels typically produce young in late winter/early spring and again in late summer. Remove an adult during those windows without checking for a nest and you leave dependent young in the attic — which ends exactly how you'd expect.

How Removal Works

1. Full Inspection

Interior attic and full exterior roofline. We map every active and potential entry, look for a nest and young, and document chewing and contamination — and we photograph it so you see what we see.

2. Remove the Animals

Trapping or one-way exclusion doors depending on the situation, handled under our PA Game Commission NWCO certification. If there's a litter, the young are removed by hand rather than sealed in.

3. Seal Every Entry

Steel mesh, metal flashing, and proper vent guards — squirrels chew straight back through foam, caulk, and wood patches. Sealing happens only after we've confirmed the attic is empty, because trapping one inside makes the damage worse.

4. Cut the Highways

Overhanging limbs are a squirrel on-ramp. We'll tell you which branches matter — usually anything within about eight feet of the roof — and where the deck rail or fence is doing the same job.

5. Address the Aftermath

Soiled insulation, chewed wiring that needs an electrician, and damaged vents. We'll flag what needs to happen and coordinate with your contractor rather than pretending the job ends when the animal leaves.

Service Area

We serve Dauphin, Cumberland, Lebanon, Perry, and York Counties — including:

Harrisburg, Paxtang, Penbrook, Steelton, Highspire, Middletown, Hummelstown, Hershey, Palmyra, Annville, Cleona, Lebanon, Grantville, Linglestown, Colonial Park, Susquehanna Township, Lower Paxton, Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg, Lemoyne, New Cumberland, Wormleysburg, Enola, Marysville, Halifax, Millersburg, Elizabethtown, Mount Joy, Mount Wolf, Manchester, Dillsburg, Carlisle, Boiling Springs, and surrounding Central PA communities.

Squirrel FAQ

Can't I just seal the hole while they're out?

It's the most common homeowner mistake. You'll either trap an animal inside — where it will chew through drywall, trim, or a vent to escape and can die in a wall — or seal a mother out from her young. Sealing is the last step, never the first.

Do repellents, ultrasonic devices, or mothballs work?

No. Ultrasonic repellers have no meaningful track record against squirrels, mothballs used this way are both ineffective and a label violation, and lights and radios get ignored within days. A squirrel that has decided your attic is home is not leaving over ambience.

Something's in my chimney, not the attic.

Squirrels fall down uncapped flues regularly and often can't climb back out of a smooth liner. Don't light a fire. Call — it's usually a straightforward retrieval, and it always ends with a chimney cap so it can't recur. Same story if it turns out to be honey bees.

Flying squirrels?

They're in Central PA and they're nocturnal, so people usually assume rats. They're smaller, colonial (you get several rather than one), and fit through much tinier gaps — which changes the exclusion work. Worth identifying correctly before anyone starts sealing.