How to trap a chipmunk in your house

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One approach you can take when trying to get rid of a nuisance chipmunk is trapping. There are actually a number of brands who offer chipmunk-specific traps, meaning that they are the right kind of design and size to safely house a slightly crazed furry animal, which is what your trapped chipmunk is likely to be. These creatures do not like being captured, and they will do anything in their power to avoid it.



There are many things that you will need to think about when you learn How to trap a chipmunk in your house. To start with, trapping animals is actually very tough when you don't know what you’re doing. The traps can be expensive too, with a single trap costing somewhere in the region of $20 to $50, depending on brand and design. You may also require more than one trap. This is the case with chipmunks, and also with a wide variety of other nuisance wildlife. One trap just won't be enough.

The bait within the trap is the easiest part of the journey. These animals are scavengers so there’s not much they’ll turn their noses up at. Certain food types are better than others, but it’s not really that important, and not if you do your job and check them regularly. If you are setting live cage traps or snap traps (for animals such as rodents) you will need to get into the habit of checking them at least once or twice per day. The last thing you’ll want to do is cause an animal to die in the trap, after you've gone to such lengths to humanely relocate it.

Speaking of humanely relocating the chipmunk, there isn’t such a thing, which brings us to why trapping isn't always the best option. In fact, we would usually recommend trapping is left to licensed professionals. There are many legalities that you will need to know about before any trapping mission takes place, and there are also legalities surrounding what can happen to the animal after you have captured it, if you manage to capture it at all.

You cannot release a chipmunk onto land that you do not own, without permission from the property owner, for example. If that land is owned by the local council or city, you’ll need to find out from them. With many wild animals, there are very dangerous disease threats to worry about, and that's why you can’t just go around releasing trapped animals back into the wild however you feel.

For the most part, you do not need a permit to trap a chipmunk, and the animals can usually be hunted and killed all year round. We would definitely recommend checking out the rules and regulations in the state that you live, however. These rules different greatly from state to state.

Read my How to Get Rid of Chipmunks guide.
For more information, you may want to click on one of these guides that I wrote:
How To Guide: Who should I hire? - What questions to ask, to look for, who NOT to hire.
How To Guide: do it yourself! - Advice on saving money by doing wildlife removal yourself.
Guide: How much does wildlife removal cost? - Analysis of wildlife control prices.