Squirrel Removal in Buffalo, NY

Squirrels in your Buffalo home

Buffalo's street trees are the on-ramp. Maples and oaks planted when these neighborhoods were built now arch over two-story doubles from the West Side to Cheektowaga, and gray squirrels commute through them roof to roof. Red squirrels — smaller, louder, fond of pines — prefer wall voids and stash cones and nuts in them. Some years a homeowner at the far western edge of the squirrel's New York range may even spot a fox squirrel, the big rusty species that is only just established this far west.

What lets them in is the roofline's age. Fascia softened by decades of lake-effect wet, a soffit corner lifted by an ice dam, the joint where a porch roof ties into the house on a wood-frame double — a squirrel needs one weak spot and an afternoon of chewing. In October, with snow on the way, every squirrel in Erie County is shopping for exactly that kind of opening.

Reading the noise: day shift or night shift

Grays work the morning and late afternoon and sound substantial — bounding runs, thumps, rolling nuts. Quiet pattering that only happens after dark is more likely flying squirrels, nocturnal and social, which slip through gaps a gray could never use. The distinction matters because a flying-squirrel seal has to be finer and cover more of the roofline. Note the hours before you call; it sharpens the inspection.

Where Buffalo squirrels get in

Entries cluster where winter works hardest: eave corners under ice dams, gable vents with rusted screens, chimney flashing lifted by freeze and thaw, and the seams of additions and dormers on older homes. On brick houses in North Buffalo the weak point is often the wooden soffit tucked behind the gutter. Our crew walks the whole roofline, because a squirrel shut out of one hole will test every other seam the same week.

Young in the attic change the plan

Grays raise young in late winter and again in late summer, nested in insulation where it is warmest. A mother sealed outside will chew her way back in — sometimes through a worse place than the original hole. We check for litters first and time the work so the family leaves as a unit, with the young mobile enough to use the one-way door themselves.

The chewing problem is the real problem

Squirrel teeth never stop growing, so the chewing never stops either: wood framing, duct runs, stored belongings and the insulation coating on attic wiring. Bared wiring overhead is a fire risk no homeowner should carry through a heating season.

How we get them out and keep them out

The method is exclusion: we fit a one-way door over the active entry so squirrels exit to feed and cannot return, seal every secondary gap with flashing and steel mesh, then confirm the attic has gone quiet and empty before the last opening is closed in metal. New York homeowners cannot legally carry a trapped animal off their property, so a door that lets the animal leave on its own power is both the humane and the lawful design.

Making the roof less inviting

What really holds is maintenance: limbs trimmed back from the roofline, screens replaced with metal-backed vent covers, small soffit splits repaired before the snow flies, and bird feeders moved away from the house during an active job.