The Problem With Squirrels Hanging Around Your Austin Property
The damage, disease, and noise squirrels bring to Austin homes, and the prevention steps that keep them out.
Read post →Scurrying overhead in the early morning is almost always squirrels. Heavy thumping after dark is a raccoon. Light, fast scratching along the ceiling late at night is rats or mice. In Central Texas the traffic into attics picks up as the weather turns colder, and the first weeks of it are the cheapest time to deal with it.
This guide covers how to tell the animals apart by sound and timing, when they move in around Leander and Austin, how they get in, what each one does to the house, and what Texas law lets a homeowner do about it. Bats get a short section of their own, because the rules are different.
What Is Making Noise in My Attic?
Timing narrows the list faster than anything else. Match the sound to the clock:
| Sound and time | Most likely |
|---|---|
| Scurrying, rolling, or gnawing in the early morning and late afternoon | Squirrels. Texas Parks and Wildlife notes fox squirrels are usually active early in the morning and late in the afternoon. |
| Heavy thumping, dragging, or slow footsteps after dark | Raccoons, which are almost exclusively nocturnal. Mewing or chittering with it usually means a litter. |
| Light, fast scratching or scurrying along the ceiling after sunset and before dawn | Rats or mice. Roof rats are climbers that nest in attics and double walls. |
| Squeaking or chittering at dusk and dawn with no footsteps, plus droppings below one spot outside | Bats, most often Mexican free-tailed bats. See the bat section below. |
| Chirping and fluttering in daylight near a vent | Birds nesting in a vent or under the eave. |
Sound alone does not settle it, but it tells you where to look. The entry point and the evidence around it usually confirm the animal: torn vents and pushed-out soffits point to raccoons, gnawed gaps at the roofline point to squirrels, and dime-sized holes with greasy rub marks point to rodents.
When Do Animals Move Into Attics in Central Texas?
The short answer is now. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension's Janet Hurley put it plainly in a cold-weather advisory: this time of year, squirrels, as well as raccoons, will try to make nests in attics, and homeowners can expect to see more mice as the weather turns colder.
- Squirrels. Fox squirrels, the common tree squirrel around Austin and Leander, breed twice a year, with peaks in January and February and again in May and June, and litters of three or four. A squirrel that moves into an attic in the fall is settling in ahead of the first of those, so the problem rarely resolves itself over winter.
- Raccoons. A raccoon treats an attic the way it treats a hollow tree: a dry, warm den safe from predators. Once one settles into an attic or outbuilding, Texas Parks and Wildlife notes it can cause serious damage and is hard to remove. If there is a litter, the mother is not leaving on her own.
- Rats and mice. House mice do not hibernate, and cold weather pushes them indoors. Roof rats prefer to nest off the ground, which in a Central Texas house means the attic, and they gnaw on wiring and rafters once they are there.
- Bats. Mexican free-tailed bats return to Texas in late winter and form maternity colonies through the summer. They are a different job with different rules (below).
How Do Animals Get Into an Attic?
Each animal has its own route, and the route is what decides how it gets removed.
- Raccoons are strong enough to rip through roof vents, soffits, and soft fascia boards, and they also use chimneys and the gaps where an addition meets the original roof.
- Squirrels use gaps at the roofline, damaged soffits, and the spots where utility lines enter the house. Limbs that overhang or touch the roof are their bridge.
- Rats and mice need almost nothing. AgriLife's guidance is to close any gap of a quarter inch or wider, and a mouse can get through a hole the size of a dime. Gaps around roof eaves and screen and louver frames are the usual attic entries.
A walk around the roofline with a flashlight at dusk, looking for torn screens, daylight through the soffit, and limbs touching shingles, finds most entry points before an animal does.
What Does Each Animal Do Up There?
Raccoons are the one to take seriously. They are a primary rabies carrier in Texas and can spread canine distemper, leptospirosis, and raccoon roundworm, a parasite whose eggs survive in soil for years and can infect people and pets. Their droppings pile up in one spot in the attic, and that latrine is where the roundworm risk lives, so do not sweep it up yourself.
Squirrels are rodents, and their teeth never stop growing. They gnaw wood, storage boxes, plastic, and electrical wiring, and rodents chewing through wires is a known cause of house fires. They pack the attic with flammable nesting material on top of it.
Rats and mice gnaw wiring and rafters, contaminate insulation, and leave droppings, grease marks, and the smell that eventually comes through the ceiling. Their numbers grow fast indoors, since house mice breed year round when conditions are right.
Can I Trap and Relocate the Animal Myself in Texas?
This is where most homeowners get surprised. Three sets of rules apply:
- Trapping on your own land is allowed. Texas Parks and Wildlife says landowners or their agents may take nuisance fur-bearing animals, which include raccoons, opossums, skunks, and ringtails, in any number by any means at any time on their own land, without a hunting or trapping license. You may not keep the animal, though.
- Driving a raccoon somewhere else is a crime. Under the state rabies control rules (Chapter 169 of the Texas Administrative Code), it is illegal to transport any live fox, skunk, coyote, or raccoon from, to, or within Texas, and a violation is a Class C misdemeanor. Relocating any nuisance fur-bearer also requires authorization from Texas Parks and Wildlife and permission from the owner of the release property. The exemptions cover specific groups, including pest management professionals licensed by the Texas Department of Agriculture, and even they must release within ten miles and inside the same county where the animal was trapped.
- Squirrels are game animals, but AgriLife notes they can be legally cage-trapped where they are causing damage or creating a nuisance, and a one-way door lets them leave a building without re-entering.
In practice that means the live trap in the garage is only half a plan. The lawful, humane path is removal by someone licensed for it, followed by exclusion so the next animal does not move into the vacancy. That is how we handle it: an entry-point assessment, then live traps or one-way doors, then the entry points sealed once every animal is out.
What About Bats?
Bats are the exception to almost everything above. They do not chew their way in, they use existing gaps, and the colony you hear at dusk is likely a maternity colony from spring through summer. AgriLife's guidance is that exclusion should be done in early spring, before maternity season, or in the fall after August, once the young can fly. Exclude a colony in June and the adults leave while the pups stay behind and die inside the walls. Bats are not on our removal list; if you have them, call a bat-specific operator and plan the work for the right season.
When Should You Call Someone?
- Daytime scurrying: squirrels. Call before the chewing finds wiring. The job is one-way doors or traps plus sealing the roofline.
- Night thumping, especially with mewing: a raccoon, possibly with a litter. Do not seal the hole yourself, and do not go near the droppings.
- Light scratching late at night: rodents. The fix is trapping plus closing every quarter-inch gap, and it goes faster the sooner it starts.
- Any animal you can hear but cannot find: the entry point tells the story. That is the first thing a technician looks for.
Accurate Termite and Pest Control handles raccoons, squirrels, opossums, skunks, snakes, and ringtail cats across Leander and greater Austin, with live trapping and one-way doors, never poison for wildlife, and an exclusion estimate as part of the service. Rats and mice go through our rodent control program in Leander and Austin. Call (512) 267-0812 for a free estimate.
Sources
- Texas A&M AgriLife Today: Entomologists expect invaders as weather gets colder
- Texas Parks and Wildlife: Eastern fox squirrel
- Texas Parks and Wildlife: Raccoon
- Texas Parks and Wildlife: Nuisance fur-bearing animals
- Texas Department of State Health Services: Transport of certain animals
- Texas A&M AgriLife Extension: Tree squirrels (damage management)
- Texas A&M AgriLife Extension: Controlling rats and mice
- Texas A&M AgriLife: A primer on bat behavior during the spring migration in Texas
