It’s true that squirrels don’t like the smell of moth balls, but it took less than a day for MY little grey neighbors to figure out that if you bury them you can’t smell them any more.
Have you considered buying a big bag of peanuts and throwing them into your neighbor’s yard?
They do indeed pick them up and remove them. My buddy had all sorts of pesky varmints going into his attic in an outbuilding and they removed the mothballs. The solution was to smash the mothballs to dust and sprinkle the dust around. No more varmints of any kind in the attic since.
My thought was the same as Ray’s, an inverted laundry basket, dirt cheap. If you think they could move it, park a bucket of water on it.
If you combined the two…
Well at least some good YouTube vidios could come out.
(Plus some frustrated cats and angry squirrels!)
In my country, squirrels are not considered to be a pest, but cute little animals. They are protected by law and cannot be hunted. I have never heard of a model railroader having problems with a squirrel dropping onto something he just painted [swg]
Sounds like an idea fr a new TV show:
Are You Smarter Than An Average Squirrel
Ah feel yer pain! I have an 8 by 24 layout in the back of my 24 by 30 garage. I often leave the big garage door open in the warmer months. Sometimes in the evening, I just use the remote to close the door from the house. Unbeknownst to me, a chipmunk get locked in the garage, the other night. That crazed chipmunk ran all over my layout from window to window trying to get out. A number of cars were knocked off the track, a bunch of trees were destroyed and knocked around, along with several vehicles knocked around and landscaping damaged, and a signal was knocked over.
Well this who squirrel situation is just nutty. Get it? Squirrels and nuts? I slay me!
(Sorry too much morning coffee)
I’ll trade you squirels. I have grey, red, black and believe it or not flying squirels. Only time i don’t see them is when the hawk shows up
They can be cute and fun to watch playing outside, such as last summer, when a squirrel was chasing around my back yard with some young bunnies of the four-footed persuasion. However, they also like to run into traffic and sometimes cause accidents, gnaw their way into homes, and (apparently) attack freshly-painted models. I’m not advocating “death to squirrels!”, but I’m also not going to say they’re completely harmless little critters, either.
I had no idea that squirrels can’t be hunted in Germany.
Around this time we have squirrels that eat the pears that have fallen in the backyard which is good because it keeps all the pears in check, never had one go for anything drying outside though. I have heard some people say used kitty litter in spots keeps them away as they think a cat is around also fox urine works. I guess you would get that at a outdoors store?? We get chipmunks and there little monsters, cute but can make a mess of a yard.
I too live in a rental and I too use Rustoleum paint on some models and I too have squirrels (there’s a big Washington Hawthorne tree just off my patio, they love the berries). But, when letting models dry, I leave them outside long enough to let the volatiles evaporate off; takes 10-15 minutes, then I bring them inside to finish drying. That way there’s no odor and none of the elements, wildlife or otherise, get to them.
If it wasn’t for those cutesy fluffy tails, people could see squirrels for what they are - opportunistic tree rats.
I use a cage trap and relocate them to a public wooded area. They have chewed through the wire screen on my porch so war has been declared. If caught in the porch, they will meet Miss Daisy from Rogers, Arkansas.
Ken
Someone said Ulrich is from Germany, probably because of his Rusty-Hamburg-People sig-line, but perhaps he is not talking about Germany at all. Because in Germany, the police can arrest Squirrels…
OK, seasonally related squirrel story - one fall my mom recieved one of those 3-ear Indian Corn Harvest wall hangings, so I hung it outside by the front door quite a distance from the steps. Over the following days the ears started to turn brown in some areas, and this discoloration was spreading. Of course, the obvious reason, which I only realized upon inspecting the ears, was squirrels eating the kernels, leaving the bare cob exposed. How the squirrel accomplished this feat was pretty interesting when I finally caught one in the act - one foot balanced on the stoop railing, the other foot hanging in the air, and both paws grasping the corn ear for dear life while the squirrel nibbled away. Squirrels love of corn is the reason why my dad never grew corn in his backyard garden after attempting it one season, since the squirrels would abscond with the almost ripe ears over the fence, even while he was watching (the tomatoes and cucumbers, OTOH, they didn’t care about),
OK, one more squirrel story - in the aforemention backyard, decades later, there was a mound of dirt about a 1/2 meter high. Looking out the window, I saw a squirrel slide down the mound - oops, I thought, clumsy squirrel. Except it then ran right back up the other side of the mound, and slid down again. It did that at least 3
When I have to paint something with a rattle can I hang it from a tree branch in my front yard. Never had a problem with substance abusing Squirrels sniffing the paint fumes. Sometimes I make a platform with a board and hang it with bungee cords so I can paint the object while it is level. There’s lots of Squirrels here. My dog would follow them around the yard as they went from tree to tree. Several times they have fallen to the ground in front of my dog. I don’t know who was more supprised, the squirrel or the dog,
I just spray them on a foam mat on top of the trash cans outside, then move it into the garage.
My late father-in-law used to do this. I believe that the squirrels made it back home before he did.
