I have lights all over my house and hanging from my rain gutter via plastic clips. Right at one corner of my house is where the power line comes from the pole across the street to connect to the house. The squirrels use it as a highway because it passes through some cyprus trees.
Apparently as they go from the power cable to the rooftop they decide they simply must chew through the cord. I got out my tools and laddered up and fixed it. Then they did it again the next day! Only this time they chewed the cord right at the base of the bulb holder–on two different bulbs. There’s no way I can repair them now.
I’m thinking of taping the light cord to the gutter right there, just so that the cord is “out of sight.” But that may not work, either, as now they seem fixated on the bulb. I guess I could take the light strand off there and decorate some more bushes.
I’ve had lights on my gutters for 15 years and this has never been a problem.
They ain’t even getting a shock. They do it in the daytime when there’s no current, and anyway they’re LED lights, so I don’t think there’s much juice.
I do like the idea of having a yard full of evil squirrel minions waiting to do my bidding. So long as ruining Christmas lights is top of my list…
I live in Chicago and our squirrels here are fat, this winter. I have Mr. & Mrs. Squirrelzilla living in my back yard. So these suckers are chewing and eating everything this year. My advice is give up. Let nature win this battle. Those squirrels will win, unless you’re willing to “take them out.” And you can’t kill a squirrel so close to Christmas.
Oh, it’s not just Xmas light cords. They’ll chew on power cords and phone cords and cable cords, too. And if they do it INSIDE your house, the power or phone or cable company will charge you if they come out and find that your problem is because your cords are chewed.
Because squirrels are evil little bastards. Somehow they got into my attic and chewed up an Easter wreath that had styrofoam eggs on it, leaving behind a pile of little styrofoam bits.
A couple summers ago I tried to grow hot peppers, and every single pepper got ripped off the plant and dumped on the ground with one nibble taken out of it. I could stand by the back door and watch the little &*#%%s go after them… "maybe this one won’t be hot (chomp) nope! Well, maybe that one won’t be hot (chomp) dammit! Let’s try that one there!)
Ha now that you mention it the squirrels near my house are fat. Must be a good year for crops.
I used to have chinchillas and they seemed to love corded things. I’d be all like, here’s a nice piece of chinchilla wood, bought especially for you, to work down your teeth but no they’d go right for the cords
I find this interesting,because I saw a squirrel chewing the corner off our garage near the door, I didn’t thnk a squirrel chewed on metal, but it left big bite hole out of it.
The little bastards have taken out my satellite cable twice in the last month. Hubby learned to keep his classic pickup in the garage last winter because they chewed through all the wiring. But that is nothing compared to what the mice did to the trunk of my car when I made the mistake of leaving a couple bags of cat food in it overnight.
