Squirrels in the Attic in Spring: Why Now, and What to Do

Why spring

Gray squirrels have a late-winter and a midsummer breeding season, and attics make warm, safe den sites for raising young. If you're hearing scampering and scratching in the attic in spring, especially near a chewed entry hole, it's very likely a mother with a litter.

Don't just seal them out

Sealing the entry while young are inside traps them, which is inhumane and leads to odor and further damage as they try to escape. Removal has to account for the babies — getting the whole family out before the entries are closed.

Then seal, because they chew

Squirrels gnaw, and chewed wiring in an attic is a documented fire risk, so removal alone isn't enough. We remove the squirrels, seal the roofline and vent entries with chew-resistant materials, and can clean up nesting material and droppings. Timing around the litter is part of doing it right.

Spring means young

Gray squirrels have two breeding periods, and the late winter into spring one is why attic intrusions cluster then. A female looking for a nest site chews and enlarges existing gaps at roof edges, gable vents, and soffit corners, and she is looking for somewhere safe and undisturbed — which describes an attic exactly.

That means a spring attic squirrel is very often a mother with dependent young, and it changes the job completely. Excluding the adult while nestlings remain leaves them to die in the structure, which is both inhumane and produces a serious odor and sanitation problem inside a ceiling or wall. Any spring job needs to establish whether young are present before anything is closed.

Exclusion, not just removal

The recurring failure with attic squirrels is treating removal as the whole job. Trapping the animal currently present leaves a proven, accessible entry point, and another squirrel finds it — often within the same year. Homeowners who have had squirrels removed three years running usually have one unsealed hole, not bad luck.

The durable solution is sealing every entry point and cutting back the limbs that give roof access, since overhanging canopy is the route in on nearly every job. On a large or complex roofline, that means a proper inspection rather than closing the obvious hole — sealing three of four entries accomplishes very little.