by Sandy
HOW TO keep squirrels from knawing on plastic lattice?
+3
It took forever for me to finally find someone to replace the cracking lattice on my screened in porch and nothing but cracking was happening it was very unsightly. NOW A FEW YEARS LATER SQUIRRELS are chewing the lattice not in one spot but everywhere. I heard peppermint oil would keep them away, so I bought some and now they are migrating everywhere on the lattice....I even had to sew part of the screen. Seems like they like this one section TG more than anywhere else hopefully it stays like that and they do not have the whole family come in for a family buffet. Ordered more peppermint spray to keep them away but at this point I do not know if this is going to work (this was before the new damage happened). I am at my wits end and REALLY DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM GOING TO DO IF THEY TOTALLY DESTROY THIS LATICE. IT WAS COSTLY LET ALONE VERY TIME CONSUMING trying to find someone to do this work. I do not know if the person that put it up would be willing to come back and fix the damage.
I was thinking of putting the metal that you put on the bottom half of a screen door but that would have to go on the whole section, approx. 15' x 6'..Do they eat aluminum I know they like to chew on the pipes on the roof to sharpen there teeth, per THIS OLE HOUSE. REALLY DO NOT WANT WOOD, ROTTING DOWN SOUTH NOT GOOD. HELP, I NEED HELP. Need ventilation after all it is a screened in porch and cannot afford windows..5-20-20
Stay safe
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Try cayenne pepper. Put water is a spray bottle with a few squirts of dish soap - to help it stick. Add cayenne pepper and shake. Spray it on the lattice. You will need to keep reapplying if it rains.
Sandy: Give their snack a spray of Tabasco sauce!
Cayenne pepper is supposed to keep them away. Try hanging some small pouches of it around.
I want to know why they are chewing the lattice to get INTO the screened porch. Do you have a food source that they are after? You could place some food that squirrels like in an area away from your house. Sunflower seeds, peanuts, etc. That would distract them from chewing on your lattice. I am not in the habit of feeding the squirrels because they can be a nuisance and they take food away from the birds as they will gobble up everything in sight BUT once they start doing damage you don't have much of a choice. You can distract them, trap them and move them about 5 miles away, or remove them permanently. I live in a wooded rural area--I am always going to have squirrels around. I don't mind them raiding the bird feeders in the cold cold winter but I don't tolerate them much in the summer!
Spray raid on them at night, my husband was feeding the squirrels though the kitchen window tossing them nuts, they destroyed my screen and my whole trim on that window it must of been the smell or crumb from the nuts, so we ended up replacing every window. I did that on my corn stalks in oct because they were destroying them and now they don’t go near the corn on the stalks either. This what they were going to get our attention and the birds too,No more.