RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

A Florence, South Carolina woman was attacked in her yard by a squirrel last Saturday. Joyce Linton was in her front yard, minding her own business, when a squirrel ran up her leg and bit her.

“I walked under the big tree we have out there and all of a sudden, this squirrel comes at me and grabs onto my leg like a cat,” Linton said. “I started screaming and shaking my leg, trying to get it off of me. I was screaming to my daughter to get the children inside. I fell to the ground then finally got it off and went running toward the door, and it started chasing me. I don’t know why it came after me. I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

Once Linton was safely inside she told her husband what had happened. Linton’s husband when to the front door and the squirrel charged up the steps towards him.

“He came at my husband like, ‘You want some, too?’ It was crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Linton said.

While her husband threw rocks at the squirrel, who didn’t budge, Linton called the police.

Linton was bitten and scratched on the back of her thigh. She was treated at a local hospital. Meanwhile, officers with the Florence Police Department and Department of Natural Resources were at her house, dealing with the squirrel that attacked her.

“The officers shot the squirrel, and it was sent to environmental services to be tested for rabies and other diseases,” Florence Police Maj. Carlos Raines said.

Raines said squirrel attacks are definitely not a typical occurrence in Florence.

Fortunately, Linton said, officials with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control notified her Tuesday that the squirrel that bit her tested negative for rabies.

With the good news in hand, Linton said she feels better about the situation but is still a bit apprehensive about squirrels.

“I’m not going to let it scare me too bad,” she said. “I’m still a little nervous when I see one, but it’s getting better. It’s just one of those crazy things you don’t think would ever happen. I’m not going to let this make me crazy, but I’ll probably be a little more cautious around them.”

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

This is what flying squirrels do in attics. They prefer to poop and pee in one spot until the accumulation causes staining through sheetrock or other areas of the house. Not exactly a pleasant smell either!

Tim Lynch
Quality Control Supervisor
Environmental Health Services, Inc.

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Photographer catches two squirrels fighting. So cool!

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Fat Squirrel Scarfs Down Entire Slice Of Pizza

We can all cry about the health ads on TV are telling us to lay off the fat and sugar, but when our squirrels are eating whole slices of pizza without compunction it's safe to say we have a problem.

Sure this proves that we live in a society of such overwhelming abundance that there are entire slices of pizza just lying around for woodland animals to enjoy. But it also helps to answer a question that has plagued philosophers for centuries: do squirrels eat pizza cheese first or crust first?

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Pennsylvania’s Purple Squirrel A Rainbow-Colored Riddle

A bright purple squirrel trapped by a Pennsylvania couple has experts offering all sorts of theories -- but no concrete answers.

Percy and Connie Emert from Jersey Shore, Pa., trapped the brightly colored creature while trying to keep the birds safe in their backyard feeder, reported Accuweather.com. They told the weather service they had no explanation for the rodent’s deep purple color.

"We have no idea whatsoever. It's really purple. People think we dyed it, but honestly, we just found it and it was purple," the Emerts told Accuweather.

Experts queried by Accuweather had several theories for the unusual look, but no hard answers. Indeed, Krish Pillai, a professor at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania, told Accuweather he thought the coloring was dangerous for the animal.

I’ve got to think one of the suggestions might be it fell in a Porta John that had blue coloration. - Henry Kacprzyk, Pittsburgh Zoo curator

"This is not good at all. That color looks very much like Tyrian purple. It is a natural organobromide compound seen in molluscs and rarely found in land animals. The squirrel (possibly) has too much bromide in its system," he said.

Some AccuWeather.com meteorologists had their own theories. Expert Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity thought it was merely an accident.

"The squirrel could have been looking for somewhere warm and fallen into a port-a-potty or something similar," he said,

Henry Kacprzyk, a curator at the Pittsburgh Zoo, said Thursday he thought it looked like a gray squirrel tinged in purple, after looking at a picture of the critter on an iPhone.

He knows of albino squirrels. Black squirrels. Gray squirrels. Reddish squirrels.

“But the purple coloration, from the purple I saw … it looked to me like this animal had come in contact with something with its fur and dyed its fur,” Kacprzyk said. The squirrel could have come in contact with a pokeberry patch, but pokeberries aren’t in season.

And strange as it sounds, he thought Margusity’s toilet theory might hold water.

“I’ve got to think one of the suggestions might be it fell in a Porta John that had blue coloration,” he said with a chuckle. “I have no idea why … but I don’t think it was born that way.”

When asked about the suggestions by some people in online forums of the potential impact of fracking fluid, Kacprzyk said the composition of such fluids in Pennsylvania wasn’t known. “My guess there is if you don’t know something, is that there’s no scientific proof to that. … I would find it amazing that it had that kind of effect,” he said.

In general, purple is an unusual color for mammals, let alone squirrels.

“There are definitely birds that have coloration like this … but not mammals,” he said. “Mammals don’t normally uptake color, ingest something it goes through and (then) it comes out through their fur.”

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Late night fire in a vacant home on Weller Road, off Bell Ave, in Elyria is believed to have started after a squirrel ate through wiring in the attic of the home.

When Firefighters arrived they found a moderate amount of smoke coming from the house and flames could be seen inside through the front windows. Firefighters were able to bring the fire under control within a half hour.

No injuries were reported.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Flying Squirrel Invades Hospital Emergency Room

Firefighters were needed stat after a flying squirrel went nuts in a New Jersey hospital's emergency room.

The squirrel kept launching itself from an 8-foot-high wall-mounted lamp into a glass wall after becoming trapped in a trauma room at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Rahway Tuesday night.

Fire Department spokesman Capt. Ted Padavano told The Star-Ledger of Newark it would climb up on a light and would jump off and glide.

A pair of firefighters threw a blanket over the squirrel and released it into a wooded area outside the hospital.

Padavano believes there may be a nest in the building because it's the second time in two weeks that a flying squirrel got in the ER.

Source = Associated Press

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

A HOUSE FIRE SUNDAY morning generated an explosion that sent six people to the hospital including four firefighters and an off-duty firefighter. The blaze began just before 9 am while the elderly resident was out for her morning walk. After investigation it has been determined that a squirrel on a utility pole created a short that blew the transformer. The short circuit sent a 7,600-volt surge into the house and started the fire.

A neighbor called the Centerville Fire Department and they arrived to find the working fire that had already burned part of the roof off. While they were inside the burning house a powerful explosion detonated sending fire out all the windows and stunning the firefighters. They all made it out of the house ok, but had assorted bumps, bruises and burns requiring them to be transported. Also injured were an off-duty firefighter from another department who had stopped to help and a bystander. The explosion knocked out the windows, shifted the walls and blew off what remained of the roof.

The investigators discovered yesterday (Monday) that when the underground utilities were laid, that the electric cable and the gas pipe were placed on top of each other. They found evidence that the power surge started the cable burning and it eventually cause the gas pipe to fail, letting leaking gas follow the line into the house where the working fire detonated the higher pressure leak.

WHO-TV Ch. 13 Des Moines has a good video report showing the failed utility lines along with interviews of the firefighters who were in the house at the time.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Squirrels Do 17% of the Damage to Fiber Optic Network

Fred Lawler, senior vice president of global field services at Level 3, said that "squirrel chews" account for a whopping 17 percent of the company's damage repairs this year, across 57,000 miles of intercity and 27,000 miles of metropolitan fiber.

Lawler noted, "Of all the animals in the whole world, almost all of our animal damage comes from this furry little nut eater. Squirrel chews account for a whopping 17% of our damages so far this year! But let me add that it is down from 28% just last year and it continues to decrease since we added cable guards to our plant. Honestly, I don’t understand what the big attraction is or why they feel compelled to gnaw through cables. Our guys in the field have given this some thought and jokingly suspect the cable manufacturers of using peanut oil in the sheathing. If you have any new ideas on how we can combat these wayward rodents, I’d love to hear from you. We are always looking for ways to improve."

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Click on image to Enlarge

What are you looking at??? It is a big squirrel nest that we removed from the soffet-eve of a person’s house. Squirrels can build some pretty amazing and sizable nests. In some cases they shred your personal possessions to make a nest. In this case we got to the nest in time to prevent a fire hazard. The nest was resting up against a very hot exterior light housing.

You get to see some pretty cool stuff being in the field. I also love that we prevented a serious issue from happening. It is easy to see why EHS really does protect health & property!

Jose Muniz
Service Specialist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA