Ryan Nickerson
Houston Chronicle
Dec. 28—During the warmer months in Texas, all one has to do is look up to find squirrels nesting in the trees. But once temperatures begin to drop, particularly in urban areas across Texas, squirrels will begin to seek warmth in any shelter — which sometimes includes homes and even cars.
This is because squirrels, in more natural settings, look for natural cavities like hollowed-out trees to build their nests, or dreys, during the winter months. In sprawling Texas cities like Houston or San Antonio, squirrels can't find as many available trees or wooded areas, so they gravitate to human-made crawl spaces, such as attics or chimneys, or seek warmth in a parked vehicle's engine compartment.
Ty Werdel, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University's Department of Rangeland, Wildlife and Fisheries Management, said the best preventive measure against the invasive critters is to cover up any holes that go into your house and build alternative shelters for them to nest.
"You drive your vehicle home from work, it's getting kind of cool at night, and then you have that warm engine. That's going to attract squirrels to go in there," Werdel said. "Keeping your vehicle in a garage, or providing them a place that they can nest that's not a vehicle, is a good option."
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Werdel recommended setting up a duck box — a structure similar to a birdhouse — that can be filled with insulation.
"If you have something like that in your yard to provide them with some of that nesting habitat, then they would hopefully use that instead of your vehicle or your house," Werdel said.
If you have a squirrel that refuses to nest anywhere outside your home, Werdel recommended setting a live trap and transporting it to a green area such as a park.
Skip Hartley has run Thunderbolt Motors, a Houston auto repair shop, for more than 40 years. Hartley said customers coming in cars with damage from squirrels happens "fairly often."
"The more active the vehicle is, the less likely this is going to happen," Hartley said. "If the vehicle has been sitting for a while, it's a good place for them to crawl up and make a home."
Hartley also said his shop sees more rats making nests in cars than squirrels — and sometimes even cats.
Hartley had a few tips to make sure squirrels, rats and cats don't build a nest inside a car:
* Keep your vehicle inside a garage.
* Remove any pet food from your car. The food can attract rats and other vermin that will crawl into the car.
* Make sure to remove any seeds, nuts or birdseed in or around the hood of the car. Hartley said pecan trees in particular attract squirrels.
* Open the hood of the car once a week, not only to check the car's fluids but also to make sure no animals are nesting under the hood.
* Hartley said if you put mothballs inside a piece of pantyhose, tie it in a knot and set it somewhere underneath the hood, where it won't get in the way of any of the vehicle's functioning parts, the smell of mothballs will keep squirrels away.
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