“Live with them” ??? Well, sure, if they’re just digging up your backyard, maybe. But when they start to burrow under the porch or sidewalk or steps, they can undermine the concrete and it can be very expensive to replace.
My neighbour and I have had this problem for the last few summers. We’ve tried about everything, like sitting on the porch with a BB-gun, water, blocking up the tunnels, etc. My dog is useless, he’ll chase them but he doesn’t catch them.
We found two approaches that are effective:
(a) Call a pest-control company. They put out the wire cages that funneefarmer suggested, although they said they use peanut butter as bait. The cages trap the chimpmunks and the pest-control people then drive them out to the woods far away to let 'em loose. Cost depends on how many they trap, but ranged from $200 to $300. Cheaper to do it yourself, if you wanna buy the cages and drive the li’l buggers out to the woods. You need to check the traps every day, of course, because you just wanna get rid of 'em, you don’t wanna cause them suffering being locked up for days without food or water.
(b) Rat poison works. The hardware stores around us are forbidden to tell you how to kill chipmunks – not sure why – but we experimented with various poisons, and found rat poison was effective. Mouse poison, no, but rat poison, yes.
CAUTION – you don’t wanna leave that stuff out for birds, dogs, cats, squirrels, or stray children. I dumped the rat poison down the chipmunk hole, so that only the 'munks would eat it, and they presumably died in their holes. (I kept a careful look out because I didn’t want dead poisoned bodies lying around for the dog or crows to pick at.) It took about four or five days, when I blocked up the holes and they didn’t unblock them.
Before the Anti-Cruelty to Chipmunk Society gets after me, I want to stress I only did this to the holes around the concrete foundations of the porch, and the steps. The ones out in back by the tree, I left alone. I don’t approve of massacring harmless li’l beasts, but when they dig under the concrete they ain’t harmless.