Collaboration in the war against nature

In my continuing struggle against the Laws of Nature (and, I suppose, Nature’s God, for those who are inclined that way), my ability to watch television has been severely impacted by seemingly inexplicable DirecTV outages. Two technicians have had to be sent out. The first one replaced a coupling but that only fixed things temporarily.

The problem was infuriatingly intermittent, and seemed weather related, so initially I had assumed that when it rains or snows, the thick cloud cover was simply killing the signal. Except more and more often, it started to happen when the skies were clear. Going through the “reset” procedure would fix it for maybe a day or two, and as the situation deteriorated eventually the reset only worked for an hour or two. Eventually it was just dead, and so I called and set up a Level Two visit, with a more senior technician.

The second guy figured out what the problem was: the cable way up at the roof line had been gnawed by rodents. Not gnawed all the way through, but just enough to let in water, and water wreaks havoc with the signal. He replaced it last month and pronounced it as “good as new.”

Unfortunately, yesterday the signal conked again.  I blamed the snow, and I did another reset. It then worked fine and still does. But a little over an hour ago, furious dog barking directed my attention to the very same section of roof line where the cable had been replaced, and I saw a telltale tail of gray fur hanging out right over the section between the DirecTV cable and the end of my roof gutter. I grabbed my camera and took a photo.

Here’s a closeup of the little bastard, peering down at me from what he obviously considers his turf:

Nature is so unfair! That gutter is too far for me to reach, as I don’t have an extension ladder which will go that high.

Coax cable  seems to be a particular favorite of squirrels, and there are lots of posts offering gratuitous advice on what to do. Some advise shooting, others suggest fake owls, Tabasco sauce (which seems to work as a repellent), and one suggested running the cable inside electrical armor, like BX or conduit. All of these are problematic for various reasons, but my biggest problem is that I don’t have a ladder that will reach that high.

What really sucks is the location of the cable. Right over the damn gutter, which of course fills with snow. As a techie commenter explains,

If the jacket is removed to expose the shield then capillary action will suck up water like a sponge and compromise the cable. Replacing the cable is the recommended action.

Lead pellets for the squirrels is the second recommendation.

All well and good, except shooting at one’s roof is decidedly unwise, and in a city, dangerous and illegal. Perhaps the wire shouldn’t have been routed over the gutter in the first place, and perhaps it should have been placed inside metal conduit, but in any event, it looks as if I am going to have to sooner or later call and go through the repair rigmarole again.

As someone who enjoys conspiracy theories, I am almost tempted to ask “Who benefits?” Certainly the squirrels do, because as rodents, they are obligated by nature to gnaw on whatever they can find to keep their teeth from overgrowing (which can be fatal), and unlike power wires, coax cannot hurt them.

But there’s another special interest group that benefits.

The satellite repair community!

And so as you new satellite school graduates go out into the world to hang cable and dishes I would give you this word of commencement advice. Watch out for squirrels! Be careful as you drive that you not squash our animal friends. Remember that after you are paid for an installation you can expect to get paid to do it again after the squirrels visit. Learn phone work because squirrels will shred phone lines also. Squirrels are your friends!

Indeed they are. And the repairmen are giving them aid and comfort.

I knew I’d find collusion somewhere!

UPDATE: Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and a warm welcome to all. I appreciate all thoughts about what to do.

BTW, I found a huge cache of squirrel-killing ideas here.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

34 responses to “Collaboration in the war against nature”

  1. Debi Sallee Avatar
    Debi Sallee

    They must have something against you personally, because I have yards and yards and yards of it around my house, and at least a dozen squirrels that I feed~~quite a few of them are hand fed~~I have NEVER had one little scratch on my cable!
    JUST SAYIN~~~ I know they can damage stuff, I personally have not had any issues, perhaps it’s because I FEED them instead of using the de-con/lead bullet way.
    Good Luck

  2. rhhardin Avatar

    Put the dish on the ground and bury the cable.

  3. Cameron Avatar
    Cameron

    If you know any men, I would suggest you ask one of them to help you out.

  4. Allan E. Avatar
    Allan E.

    Depending on how peta-fied your neighbors are you could get a pellet rifle and take care of that squirrel. the trouble is he will be replaced by another one. Maybe you can talk the cable company into installing an armored cable this time.

  5. Old RPM Daddy Avatar
    Old RPM Daddy

    I know absolutely nothing about how to handle squirrels, but is there something you could put near the cable that squirrels would be happier gnawing on, to the point where they’d leave the cable alone? I wonder if that’s even possible…

  6. Hunter Avatar
    Hunter

    The problem is you have a red squirrel. They are much worse than grays in that they get into everything and destroy it. I had a red squirrel in my barn two years ago that I shot. Two years later I’m still finding nesting material all over and have uncovered no less than 100 chewed walnuts. Get yourself a pellet rifle (.22, not .177) that shoots at least 1,000 fps. At that speed it will kill the squirrel but not go fast enough to do any real damage to property. Just watch your backdrop and only take a clean shot to kill the little bugger.

  7. The False God Avatar
    The False God

    You know what squirrels don’t like? Running an electrical trap on the roof which you activate when you see the squirrel. Hopefully, the squirrel gets fried and then falls to the ground below your house.

    Otherwise, you should probably fish it out of your gutter, lest its fried corpse clog the drain.

    Either way, it will be an impressive sight.

  8. George B Avatar
    George B

    What you need is rodent resistant armored coaxial cable or something to protect it where it goes over the rain gutter. The easiest may be to have the technician re-repair the coax, but install it in a short length of electrical conduit where it crosses over the gutter.

    I think you could kill squirrels with a pellet gun without hurting the roof or neighbors.

  9. Mike Mahoney Avatar
    Mike Mahoney

    Spoken (written?) in the voice of Red Foreman on That 70’s Show.
    Well, dumbass. They sell laddders, still. Looking at the first picture, reroute the cable to the right, over the side of the house. That eliminated the snow filled gutter from the equation.. If buying the ladder doesn’t send your sorry carcass to the poor house buy enough 1/2″ PVC tube and 2 – 45 degree elbows to route from the bottom of the dish till about a foor below the drip atrip on the side of the house. Route the cable through the PVC. Oh, and since you’re dumber than a doorknob, I hafta tell you to buy PVC cement and cleaner. You cut it with a hacksaw. While you’re up there inspect your roof. City boy. That was fun!

  10. Number Six Avatar
    Number Six

    I’ve also seen squirrels chewing through the aluminum ties that hold a chain link fence to the poles. The fence has been there fifteen years but this year one squirrel decided he likes the taste of allumium wire !

    I already have the pellet rifle but I haven’t been able to catch the squirrel in the act.

  11. Russ Avatar
    Russ

    You have a red squirrel wide awake during a time of year it should be sleeping. Clearly it’s a mutant and must be hit with a hose full of really cold water.

    Won’t solve the problem, but it WILL make the little furry bastard shiver, which will in turn make you feel better. Works for me, anyway.

  12. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    Fill a five gallon bucket half full of water. Add handful of corn. Place bucket where squirrel can access it. Wait for squrrel to drown.

  13. jab Avatar
    jab

    by a plastic half size trash can with lid. cut a 6″ hole in the middle of the lid, dump a 50# bag of corn in the can, get a steel spring trap (they’re kinda dangerous), the kind you gotta step on to set, and put it right below the hole, on top of the corn, put the lid back on and he’ll dive in and SNAP. they are suckers for corn every time. this will keep working for the next also. dogs and cats don’t care about corn. put this some where the squirrels frequent, like by a shed.

  14. William A. Taylor Avatar
    William A. Taylor

    I do NOT brake for rodents.

  15. mrbill Avatar
    mrbill

    Our guy told us as one of your posters stated. Get the dish ON THE GROUND or mount it on a small table like structure where YOU can reach it to repair, wipe off snow etc. We went to Lowed bought one of those small concrete slabs they set AC compressors on outside….attached the Dish to it….no more ladders, hanging cables etc. There is NO REASON to put the dish on the roof in the first place. My mom had hers mounted on the side of the house at EYE level so she could wipe the snow off….fini…

  16. J Wooten Avatar
    J Wooten

    A Crosman 760 .177 pellet/BB rifle is great for eliminating squirrels. At my place in Illinois I have eliminatedover 30 in the last 7 years. I used to have a problem with them chewing through siding to get into the attic.

  17. Simon H Gedney Avatar
    Simon H Gedney

    1) Swat the squirrel with a tennis racket until it’s dead. Remember to leave it out as a warning to the others.

    2) Put a hungry cat up on the roof when you hear the squirrel up on the roof. (Most effective option)

  18. DonM Avatar

    Cross bow. Squirrel. Crossbow Bolt. Some assembly required.

    Check your local laws first.

  19. Richard Fagin Avatar
    Richard Fagin

    Not to make light of your inconvenience, but be glad the critters weren’t gnawing power cables. Untold numbers of fires start by rats chewing through the insulation on cables in the attic. The fact that one might get fried, lighting up “EAT AT JOE’S” in the process doesn’t make it any less dangerous. Get your attic rodent proofed!!!

  20. Billll Avatar

    Try this: http://billllsidlemind.blogspot.com/2010/05/squirrel-trap.html

    Killing squirrels is like trying to dig a foxhole in a pond. There’s always more, but the next one may not have a taste for cable.

  21. Tex Lovera Avatar
    Tex Lovera

    DESTROY ALL SQUIRRELS!!!!

  22. Stephen Avatar
    Stephen

    My sisters old neighbor used to swear by peanut butter mixed with plaster or paris. Talk about “closed for business.”

  23. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    Eric,
    It’s the Rodent Liberation Front. They’re Maoists. I’ve had run ins with them.

    Sarah — who sometimes has trouble telling her books from reality and reality from her books.

  24. tim johnson Avatar
    tim johnson

    Tabasco sauce also makes squirrel meat palatable.

  25. Firehand Avatar

    If you’ve got a .22 rifle, see if you can get a box of Aguila Super Colibri ammo: light bullet, no powder, only primer. If your rifle will fire it(some tight bores the bullet won’t make it through) it’s so quiet it’s amazing, and accurate to maybe 20 yards with enough power to take out a squirrel.

  26. Eric Avatar

    I live in a crowded neighborhood in Ann Arbor, MI — a city which treats pellet guns as guns, the discharge of which is a crime, and is filled with busybody animal rights types. Spending hundreds for a ladder simply to get to the top of a 30′ roof to fix something not my responsibility that I am already paying to have other people fix seems an unreasonable expenditure. (My extension ladder has two twelve foot sliding sections which extend only to about 22 feet — nowhere near close enough to get to the roof.) I don’t like squirrels and have tried rat traps, but they avoid them. Slingshot scares them off for awhile.

    BTW, this post was written as sarcastic humor, and I am amazed that some people have taken umbrage, and engaged in name-calling.

    (It’s not as if I had insulted anyone….)

  27. Eric Avatar

    If you know any men, I would suggest you ask one of them to help you out.

    Are you serious? Most of the men around here couldn’t change a tire. But my welding instructor is a woman, so maybe I’ll ask her.

    IMO, the coax shouldn’t have been put over the gutter (I would not have done that, but this is not my installation.)

    The easiest thing to do is to ask DirecTV to stop feeding the squirrels.

    Drowning them would have to wait till Spring, but I like the steel trap and corn idea.

  28. Glitchus Avatar
    Glitchus

    I’d take this as a sign. I ditched paid programming shortly after the 2008 election (for obvious reasons) and now watch what I want, when I want and no longer feel that I’m supporting left-wing programming. I’m also more active and read a lot more.

  29. Walter Sobchak Avatar
    Walter Sobchak

    Rats! Bushy tailed tree rats.

    Shoot them with an air rifle. Leave the corpses where they drop “pour l’encourage les autres”.

  30. A Creative Mind Avatar
    A Creative Mind

    Such venom toward an animal that is just following its nature. There is a product, available widely, called Ro-pel. You paint it on the cable. Yes, this will mean accessing the roof-line one more time. It will make the cable taste nasty and the squirrel will leave it alone. I have lots of squirrels in my yard, gray ones I will acknowledge, that chew on things to keep their teeth ground down, but they don’t like stuff that tastes nasty. Problem solved. Good luck!!

  31. Nolanimrod Avatar

    If you want to stop the problem cheaply and permanently just run the coax through some conduit.

  32. Jeff Moore Avatar
    Jeff Moore

    I consider anyone who would run a cable in the gutter a total hack to begin with. The only wire that belongs in a rain gutter is designed for de-icing. Really, Take some pride in your work. Just because it’s easy doesn’t make it an acceptable practice.

  33. […] don’t talk about my gardening all that much, but I have mentioned my ongoing squirrel […]