If you see damage on the outside of your home, it’s a good indicator that some kind of animal family is living on the inside! This new season calls for squirrels, raccoons, skunks (though they’re on the way out), and bats. As the month of May approaches, so does the activity of bats in MA.
They may be cute, but bats and squirrels would like nothing better than to spend the rest of their lives in your Massachusetts home.
Here in MA we get plenty of squirrel calls between March and May. Typically that’s when baby squirrels (as well as their parents!) are jumping around the attic.
By the first of March the squirrels have usually finished building their nest and chewing holes into the attic. You may hear some subtle scratching (or maybe nothing at all!) as the squirrel mother sits on her nest for a couple weeks.
Don’t Be Fooled By This Lull – This Is When Squirrels Get Crazy
After a couple weeks when the baby squirrels start exploring it may sound like they’re having a squirrel party in the attic! (Hope you didn’t store your “disco ball” from the old days in that attic!) But seriously, this is when the damage begins. There will be lots of chewing (due to the squirrel’s teething) and also poop and urine in the insulation. This will accumulate as the squirrels grow into adulthood in your attic.
You’ll distinguish baby raccoons by the loud chirping noise they make as the mother raccoon moves around, or as the young are nursing. Lots of people will confuse the sound with baby birds. So if you hear chirping sounds in the ceiling or coming from the fireplace/chimney, you probably have a family of raccoons to contend with.
As with squirrels, the longer you let them reside in the attic or in your home the bigger their mess will be.
We’ve also noticed the number of bat complaints have increased – this means the bats are awake and they’ve resumed their normal routine of feeding and roosting in nice, dry, attic spaces.
Bats here in MA should give birth at the end of June into July; so at this point all you would notice is scratching in the walls and ceiling and bat droppings accumulating in the attic or insulation.
We’ve even had calls about stray bats finding their way into the living space of the house!
When this happens it’s usually a good indication of a bat colony in the attic of the home. (After all, the lost bat flying around the house had to come from somewhere.)