Squirrel sneaks into Fourth St. Apartments

A student living in Fourth Street Apartments recently gained a new roommate: a squirrel that had entered the apartment in search of food. The incident is the second squirrel intrusion into the Fourth Street Apartments in the past four years.

" They ate a hole through the wall, probably looking for food. We patched the hole up a few weeks ago, " said Michael Fulford, director of East Campus Community Housing.

Squirrels and other pests frequently pose problems for Housing staff, but squirrels are particularly difficult to deal with because they must be treated differently from other animals. " We have a pest control contract with Orkin, and they take care of mice and rats. But they don ' t do squirrels, " Fulford said.

As a result, Housing must use its own resources and staff to track down and eliminate the intruding animals. " Sometimes they spend a whole day dealing with a squirrel. In terms of trying to track squirrels down and...get them out of the building, you could be spending hours, " Fulford said.

According to Fulford, pest invasions have a disruptive effect on other maintenance operations. " They take time away from what we might say are more pressing maintenance concerns of students, " he said. " If you ' re busy trying to chase a squirrel down then you ' re not able to work on some other problems that might be going on. "

The squirrels enter buildings through a variety of holes, ventilation ducts and other openings. While Housing has made attempts to block off all possible entry points in the past, the squirrels have repeatedly found their way in.

Fourth Street in particular has been a common target. " Most of the buildings on East Campus are solid concrete or solid brick. There ' s not a lot of ways to get in, and they ' re designed that way. Fourth Street is different, " Fulford said.

The building was constructed shortly before the Olympics, and while the external walls are made out of bricks it is sheetrock on the inside.

" The first time we took care of it we thought, ' Okay, we ' ve got it, it can ' t get back in, we ' ve blocked off all the places we can, surely they won ' t come back, ' " Fulford said.

However, the squirrels have shown a surprising amount of resourcefulness. " We have small squirrels in Georgia, and so they tend to get into smaller cracks and crevices, but we keep going back and trying to find them, " Fulford said.

The invading squirrels are responsible for up to $15,000 to $20,000 in damage each year according to Fran Gillis, associate director of Housing Facilities.

" They will eat through the drywall because in the drywall there is a paste that is made of animal products, " he said.

The squirrels also cause damage to wires and electrical switch boxes. " They ' ll actually chew through telephone wires and electrical wires, and every so often you find a fried rodent at the site. "

As a result of its second squirrel incident, the Fourth Street Apartments will be the first building on campus to undergo comprehensive squirrel control procedures.

" What that entails is to actually do a complete survey of the exterior of the building, including the ground landscaping areas, as well as...roofs and pipes and any place else where a potential rodent could have access to the structure, " Gillis said.

" They do a survey to establish all of those holes and then go about making protective screens that will prohibit the access at all those points. "

At the moment the process is held up as Housing seeks to get its chosen contractor approved by the state, but according to Gillis the repairs should be under way in the next 30 days.

Housing hopes this process will ensure that squirrels stay out of the buildings. " It ' s the challenge of the rodent against Georgia Tech Housing, " Gillis said. " We ' ll see who wins. "