Squirrel in house

Oh please! Squirrels vermin, rats with tails! Please get a grip some of you. I agree they can cause damage in the roof etc. but talk about over reacting !! As a number of more sensible people said, just open the door or window and a trail of food to lure it. We have bats in our roof which I love and also would be illegal to move (not that I would want to). I agree a lot of people are so removed from the natural world that they freak at any encounter with it. When I read the title I thought it was about a burglary or assault not a tiny squirrel!

Disagree completely trisher. Birds tend to be very traumatised (but can still recover) from being captured. They are caught and ringed but still survive and they are far more sensitive than the small furries. If the squirrel is not injured it is kinder to catch and release (but they do bite) or shoo out of your property than to shoot it. I hadn't picked up on that crystaltipps. Apologies.

It's still illegal though, to release a grey squirrel, as per the law.

Crystaltipps It isn't the two minutes of stress before they are released on the spot by a homeowner who has thrown a towel over them that is in question, it is the waiting in a trap for hours until someone comes to check it that is cruel and illegal. The pest control officer can't guarantee that it will only be two minutes,. What if he had to leave a trap while he went away to do something else? There can't be any vagueness about his legal position (he could be taking bribes to transfer rats to the garden of some enemy of the householder ) He has to follow the letter of the law.

The law is that a pest control officer has to humanely kill a trapped pest as quickly as possible, and no-one (pest control or householder) can trap any wild creature then keep it in a trap without releasing it as soon as possible . A homeowner may have time to open doors and windows, lay a food trail to the outside and wait for the squirrel to follow it out, a professional hasn't. Plus "Because grey squirrels are an invasive pest species, it is against the law to re-release a grey squirrel if it’s been caught alive, per the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. That means a professional pest controller is legally obliged to dispatch any grey squirrel they catch alive." bpca.org.uk/a-z-of-pest-advice/squirrel-control-how-to-get-rid-of-squirrels-bpca-a-z-of-pests-/188983

www.gov.uk/pest-control-on-your-property

Poster was not invaded by squirrels Wilygran she had one unexpectedly pop in to her spare room theres a HUGE difference

When I had a beautifully designed upstairs maisonette close to a neighbour who saw fit to feed all the local wildlife, my son said to me one day “There’s something in there, mum!”, having heard rustling in the unconverted bit of the loft next to his open-plan sleeping area. I dismissed it and said it was probably a bird that had got in. Not long afterwards I was forced to sell the place. Not long after that I received a phone call from the new owner, screaming that I should have told her a whole family of squirrels were nesting in the loft. I have a feeling she’d opened the door and the creatures were now running riot in the flat. I felt terrible, but I can’t deny I was relieved that didn’t happen while I was still living there!

Don't know why she rang you screaming. If she'd done the right thing and had a survey it would've flagged up she had 'sitting tenants'. Good it ended up an SEP (someone else's problem)

Can’t believe how freaked out you are about a squirrel! You’re like cartoon wonen. If that happened in our house we’d be giving it a bowl of milk and taking photos.

Surely that's part of life's rich tapestry, the fact that we're all different?
Ruddy boring if we were all the same.

It amazes me how we call certain animals vermin, because of the damage they do. Humans are right at the top of the list, just look at the state of our beautiful planet

Minxie, it's hard to disagree with that last statement - but would you want a whole load of squirrels, rats or mice living in your house? (And yes, I know in this case it was only ONE squirrel...but my point stands). Personally, being brought up in the country, I'd have just caught it and chucked it outside (legal or otherwise).

It might have phoned the police the minute it got outside though..

That's a risk I'd be willing to take....

You should google the diseases that grey squirrels carry then you might not be quite so keen on them!

breeze
Good point! Selling up was all rather traumatic (my dad was dying at the time) so it’s all a bit of a blurr now. But you’re right. They must have bought the place without a full survey. Maybe they had one of those mini ones you could get at the time. A bit late, but I now feel considerably less guilty. Thanks!

So sorry I read this,upset all weekend why didn't you just open the window!!

I just find the original post incredulous I cannot imagine professional shooting an animal in front of the person and on the bedroom curtain rail didn’t it bleed onto the curtains or carpet ..... I must be very out of touch
I found that a bit odd too Bluebelle!

I wondered if it had gone !splat! all over the curtains ]

It astonishes me that some could think trapping it, leaving it trapped in a room with the vain hope that it might find an open window or any other resolution would be kinder than the quick death it was given.
trisher I don't think squirrels are stupid - in fact I think they're very clever. I do think if the OP had opened a large window the squirrel would have found its own way out fairly quickly.
The question is - how did it get in?
A neighbour had squirrels in her loft years ago and they were a nuisance but between DH and a couple of other neighbours they were evacuated and the holes where they may have got in blocked up.

my husband purchased some humane traps and set them up. Every time we caught one we took it for a drive and released it far away from the village.
I persuaded DH to do this with a mouse which we then deposited in the countryside not far away but were told that it would probably have died anyway as other mice would attack it as it was invading their territory.

The only 'pests' on this planet are human beings...

Starbox
Maybe the OP could recount the tale over Christmas dinner and add the rider that it didn't,t go to waste as it's the stuffing in the turkey.

starbox small 's'.

What's cruel? I had then in my loft, pest control killed 3 in his traps. He found out where they were getting through and blocked the space off

They are dangerous especially where electric wires are concerned as they chew through them.

You did right to call pest control as there may be others and they can do damage. As far as I am concerned it was money well spent when I called them out.

I'm surprised that pest control didn't use a trap.

I’m with bluebelle and all those who are shocked by the cruelty. Live and let live.