From the common to the eaves
A grey squirrel moves through tree canopies and along fence tops with ease, so a house close to the edge of Wandsworth Common or Tooting Bec Common has a natural bridge from mature trees straight to its own roofline.
Confirming it's a squirrel
Timing gives the clearest indication: squirrels keep daytime hours, so activity around dawn and late afternoon points to them, while overnight noise means rats or mice, much as it does near Balham, where dense Victorian terraces around the high road and the common.
Checking for damage
Look from the loft hatch without climbing in, using a torch: shredded or flattened insulation, gnawed timber, chewed boxes and droppings near a water tank. The most serious find is chewed electrical cable, bare conductors are a fire hazard, so leave it alone and have an electrician check it - the same pattern holds near Wandsworth, where victorian terraces around the town centre.
What not to do
- Block the entry hole while a squirrel may still be inside - it will chew a new way out, sometimes into the house
- Put down poison in the loft
- Catch a squirrel and release it elsewhere
The last point is a legal one as much as a practical one, grey squirrels are an invasive non-native species and it's against the law to release one once trapped - the same pattern holds near Wandsworth, where victorian terraces around the town centre.
Booking squirrel control in Wandsworth
Our squirrel trapping service in Wandsworth is £280, and since around Putney, where riverside mansion blocks and Victorian terraces climbing up from the Thames, 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 Wandsworth squirrel control page.
