So it is cold outside and the garden is gone. The leaves have fallen, so there is not much to say about the trees and shrubs. The grass is done growing, your pruning should be done and almost everything should be wrapped up for the winter. So this week the only problem I heard is squirrels in the attic.

It is that time of the year that rodents of all sizes want to come into your house for the winter and I bet you are not too happy about it. Most people do not like roommates that don't pay rent. Now mice are easy, the basic snap trap or poison will work fast on them. But chipmunks, red and grey squirrels are a lot harder.

Unlike mice, poisons will not work on these rodents as they have the ability to regurgitate the poison. So it is either snappy traps or live traps to get rid of them. Now most people don't like to use a snap trap on a chipmunk because we think of them as cute little critters like Alvin, Simon and Theodore.

So that leaves the live traps (Hav-a-hart) to catch those little critters. So lets skip ahead and say that you have now trapped and removed all the critters from your attic, how do you keep them from coming back. First you have to find where they are coming in. Is it some loose siding or did they chew a hole into the wall? Loose siding is easy, nail it back fast to the building and you should be all good.

If it is a hole that they have chewed it needs to be filled. Expanding foam insulation that comes in a can is the best way to get inside the hole and make sure all the gaps are filled. But you must add the secret ingredient for it to work properly so that they will not just chew through the foam insulation.

Since I am such a nice guy I will tell you what it is so that you don't have to make a special trip into the store to see me, even though we do sell this secret ingredient. The secret ingredient is steel wool. Not the Brillo you use to clean dishes as that has detergents in it that can affect the foam insulation, but just plain old steel wool like the type used for wood working and refinishing. This steel wool has no detergents and will not react badly to the foam insulation.

Pack some steel wool into the hole before applying the foam insulation, the foam will go through and around the steel wool totally encapsulating it. By doing this you can ensure that the rodents will not chew through the foam, for if they do they will hit the steel wool and it will cut up their mouths and they will stop. Now this is not to say that they won't try to chew a couple feet down the wall, but they will at least have to wait a couple weeks for their mouths to heal first. Maybe by that time, the neighbors cat will get rid of them for you.

Also one other quick note. Keep an eye on the wildfires in California, as they are affecting our weather already and will continue to affect our weather this winter. I will get into more about this, next week.