Squirrel Removal in Toronto

Toronto's squirrels are eastern grey squirrels, and the black ones you see everywhere are the same species in a darker coat. They live in every mature tree in the city, which means every established neighbourhood: the oaks and maples of the Kingsway and Sunnylea along the Humber, York Mills, Hoggs Hollow and Don Mills around the Don, the sixty-year-old trees over the bungalows of Cliffside, Bendale and Wexford in Scarborough, and the street trees of East York and downtown that are as old as the houses.

A branch near the eaves is a bridge, and once a squirrel is on the roof it finds the soft spots: wood fascia that has had decades of weather, a soffit corner that was never quite closed, a plastic roof vent. The pages for Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke go neighbourhood by neighbourhood; the Toronto page covers the whole city.

Grey squirrels raise young twice a year, once in late winter to early spring and again in late summer, and a warm, dry attic is a favourite nursery. A squirrel you hear in March or in late August is very likely a mother with a nest in the insulation. She moves her babies between dens if she's disturbed, so the noise can stop for a few days and start again, which is not the same as the squirrels being gone.

That is why nothing is sealed until every squirrel, young included, is confirmed out. Close the hole with the babies inside and the mother chews a new one to get back to them; close it with the babies out and the mother in, and she chews her way out, sometimes into the house.

Squirrels get in by chewing. Wood fascia, aluminum soffit and plastic roof vents all give way to squirrel teeth, and the usual entry points are the roof edge, the soffit corners, gable vents, roof vents and the junction where a roof meets a wall. A small gap is enough to start. They chew it wider over time, and the hole becomes their regular door, used several times a day.

Inside, they nest in the insulation and bring in leaves, twigs and acorns. What makes a squirrel different from a raccoon is that the chewing doesn't stop at the entry point. A squirrel's teeth never stop growing, so it never stops gnawing, and in an attic that sometimes includes wiring, which is the main reason not to leave a squirrel problem until spring.

A lot of people try one fix themselves first: a board over the hole, some steel wool, a little foam. A squirrel that has been using that hole for weeks comes back to the same spot and chews beside the patch, through it or into a new corner, and if it was inside when the hole was closed, it chews out from the inside.

The fix that holds starts with the whole roofline, because a squirrel that has found one soft spot has usually tested others. Every squirrel is confirmed out, the entry point is sealed, and the chewed wood, soffit or vent is repaired rather than covered over.

Frantic scratching in one spot, at one height, going on for hours, is usually a young squirrel that fell down a wall cavity from the attic and can't climb back out; inside a finished wall there is nothing to grip. This one is urgent, because a stuck squirrel has days, not weeks. Keep pets away from the wall, don't bang on it, and note which wall and roughly how high up. See something in the walls.

A squirrel in the fireplace came down an uncapped chimney and usually can't climb the flue back out. Keep the damper and the fireplace doors closed, keep the room shut, and call. Once it's out, a chimney cap stops the next one.