How to Get Rid of Chipmunks

We are experts in chipmunk control methods, having performed thousands of chipmunk removal jobs nationwide.

Chipmunks are such adorable little animals as you watch them move about in your backyard. Although there are 25 different types of chipmunk species you will still almost always see them doing the same things; gathering food and scurrying around in a playful manner. Chipmunks can be a variety of colors (light and dark) and they can be from 7 to 11 inches in length. All of them have pouched cheeks like a gopher and when they start to talk, it sounds like a whistle that is high pitched. While you will see more of them in North America, they can generally be spotted anywhere because of their ability to survive in different environments. Read below for much more detail. You may be able to solve your chipmunk problem yourself. If you need to hire professional help, you may want to find out what we typically charge for chipmunk removal. Pro help is most relevant if you are unable to effectively or legally trap and relocate animals, or if you have a difficult case. If you need chipmunk removal in your hometown, we service over 500 USA locations! Click here to hire us in your town and check our prices - updated for year 2020.

Chipmunks like to live near areas where they can collect food using their cheek pouches to store and easily transport their collections back home. “Home' for chipmunks include bushes, burrows that gophers leave behind and logs. However, they are more likely to live underground. Their favorite foods to gather are berries, nuts and seeds. However, they will eat insects and birds sometimes. Depending upon the type of environment that they live in they will also eat chips, bread and other types of human food. Click here to read about chipmunk biology and information.

Chipmunk Nuisances
Chipmunks may be the cutest little animals that you've ever seen, but they are in no way innocent. They destroy your lawn and dig up your gardens leaving you feeling frustrated. Because their homes are often hidden, your pets could easily hurt themselves if they stepped in one of their holes by accident. Chipmunks can carry a lot of diseases that can be spread to humans and other animals as well. Chipmunks can also block pipes around your home due to their fur balls. They can also chew through wires and take up residence if they find an opening to enter your home.

Benefits of Chipmunks in Your Yard
The nuts and seeds that chipmunks gather throughout the area that they live are distributed amongst the ecosystem. This helps to persuade new growth while making more food available to carnivores.



How to Get Rid Of Them
Some people suggest that you use repellants in your yard to keep chipmunks from even coming that way. This includes placing mothballs all around the landscaping of your yard as well as around any gardens that you may have. The moth balls are supposed to let off a scent that chipmunks don't like and run them away. However, this is not the best option considering the moth balls will eventually get old and you will have to put out new ones, they poison the environment, they are a human carcinogen, and most of all, they just plain don't work! Overtime, this can lead to a buildup of moth balls and leave you with a mess to clean up. If you have children who play in the yard or dogs that come out from time to time, they could get a hold of some and get sick.

Traps
Live traps are effective in getting rid of chipmunks. Place the trap in a shaded area that the chipmunks frequently visit with a cup of pecan paste and seeds inside the trap all the way to the back. This ensures that the chipmunk has to come all the way in before he is able to grab the food, and the door can shut securely behind him. There will be a trip pan in the trap when the chipmunk enters. This will also need to be covered with pecan paste and seeds sprinkled on the top. Take some grass and put it around and on the inside of the trap so that it's unnoticeable or disguised. If you walk away and wait for a few hours or a couple of days, the chipmunk will smell the food and make its way into the trap to retrieve the food. Once he does, the trip pan will activate, shutting the door and locking it securely behind the chipmunk. No damage is done to the chipmunk and you can easily transport him away from your home into a better area.

Click below for more chipmunk removal information:
Chipmunk trapping tips
About Chipmunk: Biology, life cycle, diet
How to kill chipmunks
How to trap a chipmunk in your house
What kind of damage can chipmunks cause?
How to Remove Chipmunks in Attic, House, Walls, or Basement
Chipmunk Repellents - Types, and do they work?
Chipmunk Prevention - How to keep Chipmunks away from yard or landscaping

Some Specific Chipmunk Situations:

How To Get Rid Of Chipmunks In Your Yard

Chipmunks are ground burrowing little rodents. Although they are related to the squirrels, they are in a family of their very own. They are hardy little things and survive on almost anything, from nuts and seeds to flower bulbs and even left over human foods. Like mice, chipmunks procreate rapidly into an entire colony. The more chipmunks you have in your yard, the bigger the job you will have getting rid of them.

Several ways have been employed to get rid of chipmunks, some more successful than others. Trapping, as soon as you see the little critters frolicking in your yard, is probably the best way to control and eliminate your chipmunk problem. Chipmunk traps can be bought in your home improvement stores. Just set them, bait them, and then carry them to a location far from your home and let them go. You can place a huge plastic owl in your yard. This should act as a deterrent since owls love chipmunks for dinner. Cats are another predator that will take care of chipmunks, so long as you don't have too many. Chipmunks seem to dislike moth ball odor. Strewing mothballs on your yard may get rid of your chipmunks. Just be careful your pets don't eat the mothballs.

How To Get Rid Of Chipmunks In Your Garage

No matter how cute chipmunks may be, they are destructive little nuisances. When they forage for food outside and eat your flower bulb, that's already bad enough. In your garage they can wreak havoc by chewing through wires, bags of dog food or other things you may have stored there. If you think you are safe because the dog food is on a table, think again. Although chipmunks are not primarily climbers, they can easily climb up on a table and chew through the cover of a bag of dog food.

The good thing is that chipmunks can be sent packing to live somewhere else. In your garage, a pan of cat litter placed near the garage door can be a great deterrent to keep the chipmunks from entering. They will assume that a cat lives there and scurry sway. Cats, owls, coyotes and foxes are some of the chipmunks' mortal enemies. By the same token as the cat litter, fox or coyote urine pellets will indicate their presence in the garage and keep the chipmunks out. Moth balls in a garage will also keep the little critters out of the garage. If you place the mothballs in a container with holes, then your pets won't be able to get to them but the odor will still be in the air, keeping or chasing chipmunks out of your garage.

How To Get Rid Of Chipmunks In Your Attic

If you hear little tap-tap-tap feet running in the attic you may want to check that out to see what kind of rodents you have up there. If you see chipmunks scurrying in your yard now and then, or see them in your bird feeder, then you may safely assume that the noise you hear in the attic is from chipmunks. They are not natural climbers, but will climb a tree now and then. It is a short distance from low-hanging branches to the roof and attic of your house.

Chipmunks in your attic will eventually chew up your electrical wiring and may even cause an electrical fire in your house. They do not like the odor of mothballs. While mothballs are overrated as deterrents for other animals, for chipmunks they work very well. They will leave your attic to live elsewhere. The cat's litter box will also do a good job of making the chipmunks feel unwelcome. Trapping them in the attic will also work. So long as there is bait in the live trap, the chipmunk will go in it. There are other methods, such as poisoning them to get rid of the chipmunks, but it is easier to get rid of them when they leave of their own volition than having to search for them and pick them up after they die. Make sure you close up every opening to the attic after they are gone.

How To Get Rid Of Chipmunks In The House

Chipmunks in your house can cause an enormous amount of destruction. Their sharp little teeth can chew through very hard surfaces. They look for food wherever they can find it. If you notice that you have a chipmunk in your house, you certainly want it gone for more reasons than one. Sanitation is the most important reason to get it out. Chipmunks carry fleas and who knows what other bacteria are on their feet and in their feces, which they drop indiscriminately. The other reason is that they are destructive. They have made a hole in your house somewhere to get inside.

If you see the chipmunk coming in from a certain area in your house, you must find out where its entry is. If you see it leave, close up the hole at once and place mothballs all around the area inside and outside of the house. A cat may be a great addition to your home at this point. If you can't have a cat, buy some fox or coyote urine and place it all around the perimeter of your house. If the chipmunk hasn't left your house, bait some live traps and place them in strategic areas in your home. Remove all easily accessible food. The chipmunk will go for the food in the trap. Then take the trap far away from home and let the chipmunk go.