From the canopy to the eaves
A grey squirrel moves through branches and along fence tops as confidently as along the ground. Houses sitting close to mature trees usually have an overhanging branch acting as a bridge, and from there a squirrel only needs a weak spot at the eaves to get in.
Ealing's avenues and Walpole Park
The broad, tree-lined avenues around Ealing itself, and the mature trees bordering Walpole Park, put squirrels within easy reach of a great many nearby roofs. Checking the eaves each autumn, before the colder months send squirrels looking for winter shelter, is worth doing here in particular.
Greenford and the Grand Union Canal
Further out, the trees along the Grand Union Canal towpath in Greenford give squirrels a similar route onto the newer housing nearby, even where individual gardens have fewer mature trees of their own.
Confirming it is a squirrel
Timing is the clearest clue. Squirrels are active by day, so running and thumping at first light and again in the late afternoon points to them, while noise in the small hours points to rats or mice instead.
Checking for damage
Look from the loft hatch without climbing in, using a torch: flattened or shredded insulation, gnawed timber, chewed boxes and droppings near the water tank. The one finding to treat seriously is chewed electrical cable, exposed conductors are a fire risk, so leave it alone and call an electrician, whether that's near Northolt, where interwar semi-detached suburbia towards the borough's western edge, or elsewhere in the borough.
What not to do
- Block the entry hole while squirrels may still be inside; they chew a new way out, sometimes into the house
- Put down poison in the loft
- Catch a squirrel and release it elsewhere
That last point is a legal one as much as a practical one: grey squirrels are an invasive non-native species, and releasing one back into the wild once caught is against the law.
Booking squirrel control in Ealing
Our squirrel trapping service in Ealing is £280, and since around Ealing, where broad tree-lined Victorian and Edwardian avenues around the town centre, it helps to say when you book squirrel control whether the sounds are by day or night and whether trees overhang the roof, with more on the Ealing squirrel control page.
