Who Do You Call When You Have a Squirrel Trapped in Your Fireplace?

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 1.

It is Sunday afternoon and you hear something from the living room. Ignore it!

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 2.

It is now past dinner time and you are discussing Paris restaurants with your oldest son. Then you hear that sound from the living room again. Erik heard it too, so now you can't ignore it. He suggest that I call animal control, but animal control is no more in West Windsor, NJ. Budget cuts!

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 4.

We realize that if we open the glass doors, the squirrel may disappear in the house, and we will have a lot of work chasing him or her. I start to look for something to catch the squirrel with in case...

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 5.

I google "How do you get a squirrel out of your chimney" and before I have finished the line google has delivered 2.8 million answers. Wow! I'm not alone. The google answers are interesting, but I don't want to climb the roof and lower a rope down the chimney so that the squirrel can escape.

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 6.

By the way... how did it get in? We have a mesh that the chimney guy put in to prevent birds from getting stuck. Those clever rodents.

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 7.

I went into the garage to look for something to catch a squirrel with, but the only thing I could come up with was one of the large garbage cans. The lid was however to clumsy to operate so he/she might escape, so I went to the basement and picked up a poster board, which covered the top of the can nicely.

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 8.

My home-made squirrel trap.

Back at the fireplace it was eerily quit. I took a flashlight to see if he/she was hiding in a corner, but all I could see was pieces of insulation that he/she had ripped into. No squirrel. Did it escape? Well, I moved on and set up my home-made squirrel trap, which you can see on the photo. Note the poster board to the right behind the garbage can.

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 9.

The trap was now set, but no squirrel in sight, so I went back into the kitchen, returning to a project I was working on. Fifteen minutes later, I here noise from the living room. YES! He is in the can, and I carefully slide the poster board in-between the fireplace opening and the can. I shake the can slightly to check if the squirrel is in it. It is!

How to get a squirrel out of your fireplace... Part 10.

Erik and I carry the can out and flip it over away from us and boy, was that squirrel happy, bouncing off like on a squirrel date. 

End of story!

Hans Sandberg