I just live with 'em. I'm in a creek bottom and have a neighbor up the street who planted tons of pecans in his back yard. The old fart now traps and shoots the squirrels to "protect my investment" (the guy is 80, fer-christ-sakes, and he's not likely to go into the pecan selling business at this age!) People have stolen his traps right and left (mostly his neighbors on the right and the left!) and he keeps buying more. A fire and radical tree-trimming by the power company this week after his trees brought down a power line didn't disuade him. He has another trap in place (the last one seems to have taken a mysterious leap into the raging creek waters on Saturday night--observed first-hand by his next-door neighbor). :)

I've squirrel-proofed my attic. It worked last winter. It was a lot of work, and I have to go back and re-check the hardware cloth again this fall. Outside we're all in competition for space. They must have planted a half-million acorns and pecans in my yard last fall. What are another half-million this year? I found several in my potten plants, and I pull them out. I mow them or I pull them out of the garden. Those at least are easier to pull than the hackberries that seed themselves.

The squrrels may be rodents and relatives of rats, but they are beautiful and quite entertaining. You should see them struggle to defeat the "squirrel-proof" bird feeder! They're quite the gymnasts.

SRS