Don't get me wrong, I like squirrels but they have uprooted the pansies in my flower boxes on my deck multiple times which I can live with but I have noticed that they have been chewing on my deck. Does anyone know if I seal and/or paint the deck if that will stop the little buggers from chewing it to pieces? I won't shoot them or poison them...just give them dirty looks.
Are you Australian?? Little buggers indeed..lol. I am Australian so I'm still getting used to seeing the little buggers.
Give them another dirty look or two and warn them you're on your way to your local hardware store to ask what will make them think your flowers and wood are quite uninteresting. I know mothballs will work, but if you have cats or toddlers who wander outside you don't want to use those. Cayenne pepper might be worth a try. But the hardware store (or feed store) folks will know what is successful in your area. My hardware people are experts at the "nonviolent" remedies, even if it means they can't sell me anything that day.
Squirrels are medium-size rodents, so they HAVE to chew things. If they don't, their teeth get too long and they can't eat. As another writer has also mentioned, we deal with our squirrel visitors by giving them food to use their teeth on. It's not a costly proposition in the long run. We buy dry ear corn and sunflower seeds in bulk (and on sale), and have feeders and a water dish in one corner of the yard. (The bird feeders are in the other corner, and we use bird seed that squirrels don't like.) Squirrels enjoy apples, too. (BTW, squirrels can carry diseases, so you don't want to try to hand-feed them.)
One result of this is that we lose very few plants to the squirrelly neighbors, and they don't chew on anything else except the hard dog bones our puppy leaves outside. They are pretty comical as well but - like kids - you have to provide them good things to do so they won't get into mischief.
You can buy fox urine and, I believe, artificial fox urine to sprinkle around. Keeps most small animals away, but people can't smell it.
Are you sure they've been chewing on your deck? Squirrels don't eat wood. Perhaps some other small woodland creature has been doing damage there. For that one, I got nothin' : )
Good luck.
Moth balls will repel them. You can also sprinkle garlic powder.
I just remembered another repellant--used cat litter--take out the poo--the stronger the urine smell the better it works.
little buggers! give them dirty looks LOL and if not seal the deck, wood would easily soak up essential oils (lavender or citronella) or even a nasty concoction, of chili peppers soaked into oil, and paint that where they chew. Someone mentioned eating squirrels last night on here, maybe look at them visualizing them in a roaster & they will sense it & get lost!!!
Sprinkle cayenne pepper in the flower boxes, or even on the leaves of the pansies. You could possibly make a spray with cayenne pepper, water, and a bit of soap (to help it stick) to spray on the areas they are chewing on the deck, also. Just remember, you need to reapply after it rains.
Or, learn to live with them... put out one of the "squirrel feeders" where you put an ear of corn on the wooden feeder... attract them to a certain area of the yard, and maybe they will leave the other areas alone? When we lived in Iowa, we had the squirrel feeder that looked like a chair and table, with a spike going up through the table.... you pushed the ear of corn over that spike, and it looked like the squirrel was sitting at a table, eating! If you know a local corn farmer, you can sometimes buy ear corn much cheaper from them, than at the store.
