I didn’t realize that I had a squirrel problem, at first.  It actually took about a month and a half and an actual squirrel sighting for me to really wrap my head around it, which seems silly now.  All the signs were there, the chewing on siding, the pit-less peaches, and the burrows.  Actually, I think all of those reasons were why I was so confused! When I picture squirrels, I think of them living in trees, collecting pinecones and acorns, I guess peaches didn’t seem like their food choice? Also, the fact that they were burrowing underground, making a hole right off the edge of my concrete patio.  Plus the chewed fencing and siding? I guess I really had connected it to rats.

I noticed the siding first, but honestly on first glance I thought that my son had just chipped some away with his soccer ball on accident so I didn’t think twice about it.  I knew that squirrels chewed on things to help keep their teeth at a reasonable length, but I never connected that to this.  Then, I noticed the burrow.  That made me think that I had gophers or moles or something, I didn’t realize that squirrels burrowed underground? But I totally thought that I had rats or gophers living at my house, I even set up rat traps hoping to catch it/them.  The thing that finally got me to realize that it was in fact a squirrel problem and not some other animal, was the peach pits.

This was really odd to me; every year peaches fall on the ground and sometimes animals like raccoons or even my dog will eat them.  This year was different though, all of the peaches on the ground were intact for the most part, the only thing different was that the pits were missing and nothing else! After a little bit of research I found out that squirrels sometimes chew on the peach pits to grind down their teeth, and that’s when I connected the chewed siding and the peach mystery.  After finally getting to the bottom of it, I called in a professional to remove the squirrel(s) from my yard.  After only a week, we had caught 3 squirrels and were able to seal off their nest under my porch and call it a day!  I’m lucky that it wasn’t more of a hassle, and that the trapper had an easier time identifying the squirrel problem than I did.