How Do You Humanely Get Rid of Chipmunks?

Whether you’re a brand-new homeowner or you’ve had your abode for a while now, you may already be familiar with the critters that can make their way onto your property and even into your home. While the term “pest control” often refers to bugs and insects, it can also extend to larger critters, too. If you’ve noticed you have a chipmunk problem, then the best decision is to get rid of them before they damage your property — but that begs the question, how do you humanely get rid of chipmunks?

Thankfully, there are a few methods that can work when getting rid of chipmunks that can help you do right by nature and your own needs.

1. Identify an Infestation

The very first step in getting rid of chipmunks on your property is to make sure what you have on your hands is in fact a chipmunk infestation. Some of the common signs you can keep an eye out for include holes in your yard, foundation damage, teeth marks, chew marks, stockpiles of food, and even chewed-up flower bulbs.

You may also be able to hear chipmunks in your yard or on your property. If you notice any of these signs, you probably have a chipmunk infestation on your hands.

2. Landscape Accordingly

Chipmunks tend to burrow in the ground and hide in dens, which means open, wooded areas with trees and bushes, as well as your yard, can all be great places for them to make their billet. Make sure you trim your shrubbery, clean your yard often, and try not to keep too many shrubs, logs, and stumps in your yard, as they can be good hiding places for chipmunks.

3. Seal Up Holes

One of the more humane ways to get rid of chipmunks is to simply illuminate their habitat on your property. Since chipmunks prefer to burrow in holes, make sure you seal up any of the holes in your lawn, between rocks, and even on the home’s structure itself.

4. Eliminate Gaps

Similar to the way they prefer to burrow in holes, chipmunks can often make gaps work as a habitat as well. Make sure there are no gaps in the foundation of your home or throughout your landscaping. This can definitely help make your property less appealing for chipmunks to burrow.

5. Make Bird Food Unappealing

One of the ways in which chipmunks maintain their sustenance on someone’s property is by picking at birdseed left out for birds. If you noticed that chipmunks are doing this in your yard, one of the ways you can combat it is by making sure the birdseed is unappealing or unattainable to the chipmunks.

For a start, you can make sure the birdseed is high enough that chipmunks have trouble climbing to it. You can also buy bird food with hot pepper added to it, which birds can eat but chipmunks cannot.

6. Pepper Your Plants

Similar to the situation with birdseed, if chipmunks tend to eat the plants in your yard, you can add hot pepper to your plants in order to keep them protected from the chipmunks. That way, the plants will taste bad to the chipmunks and they will stay away.

7. Electronic Pest Repellants

Of course, using pest repellent can often seem inhumane, as the belief with pest repellents is that it automatically will kill whatever animal it’s targeting. However, there are options that don’t involve chemicals and that simply repel pests rather than kill them.

Electronic pest repellents are among them. The primary method they use to repel pests is by emitting sound waves that bother them enough that they go away.

8. Humane Traps

If you’ve truly tried all of your options and you’re still having no luck, you can try setting traps. These aren’t intended to hurt or kill the chipmunks, but instead make it easy to transport them somewhere else you can set them free.

Getting Rid of Chipmunks Humanely

Chipmunks can be a real problem, especially when they invade your property and cause damage. Thankfully, there are ways to remove them without hurting or killing them. They just require a little patience and know-how.