Help...daughter renting a house and a groundhog family lives downstairs-- plus squirrels are in the attic...any ideas for getting rid of them? The .22 would work but the landlord is the hug-a-tree type and thinks animals under the house is cute....and lives close enough to hear us shooting. Know where they get in but can't seem to catch them out long enough to block off the obvious openings. Noise is so bad at nite they have taken to sleeping at my house!

-- Mutti (windance@train.missouri.org), September 24, 1999

Answers

Squirrel trap, a box trap that you bait with a blob of peanut butter or what have you. If you are soft hearted, walk the critters to some new digs out in the woods. Once you're tired of them coming back, you'll empty it after first lowering the cage into your full rainbarrel. Your neighbor/landlord won't hear a thing.

Or just use subsonic .22 rounds and have at it. Don't let those critters have their way. They'll crap all over, chew up everything and keep you awake while doing it.

Squirrelchaser

-- Squirrelchaser (squirrelchaser@the.farm), September 24, 1999.

Maybe set off lots of bug bombs while the animals are in. They will get out and maybe after a few days of bug bombs, find another home. Also call the animal control office, they will do something if the house is in the city. These types of animals carries rabies.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 24, 1999.

I have to respond to the previous post - squirrels do not carry rabies. Don't know about groundhogs, not familiar with them, but I would doubt it. Your primary vectors for rabies are raccoons, foxes and bats. Rodents in general do not carry rabies. Rabies is transmissable from dogs and cats to humans only within the seven day period before the animal dies. That is the only time when the virus is present in the saliva.

-- dakota (none@thistime.com), September 25, 1999.

Well, my cousin was bit by a squirrel and she had to take the rabies shot. That is why I thought they could carry rabies.

-- Carol (glear@usa.net), September 25, 1999.

Regarding rabies, the first person to undergo rabies treatment in the US back in the early 60's had been infected by skinning a raccoon which carried the disease. The second was my little brother who was attacked by a rabied fox. Domestic animals though are our most likely contact for contamination with this disease.

Regarding your unwelcome houseguests, try any product that is highly odorous. A heavy dosing of perfume on newspaper placed under the house, ammonia soaked into the ground by their opening or deer urine (bought at any sports/hunting store). Anything that will cover their own scent should turn these critters away.

-- lianne dyck (lianne.dyck@nextel.com), September 27, 1999.