Squirrels can mean trouble

I hate the cold.

One Illinois winter, it got down to -22 degrees. That kind of cold isn't miserable, it's painful. It gets in your bones and doesn't leave.

That night of subzero weather, the water pipes in our basement apartment burst, and the maintenance man wasn't answering his phone. Half an hour later, an inch of water had crept across our apartment. I couldn't find the shut-off valve. Panicking, I turned off every valve in sight. Unfortunately, that included the entire building's heat.

The next morning, my wife and I confirmed we were pregnant with our first child.

Didn't feel like a good omen. Sort of like a black cat, or maybe a black squirrel.

What about black squirrels? Or maybe just squirrels in general. Are they bad omens?

Fox and Eastern gray squirrels are very similar in appearance. The vast majority of fox squirrels are brown-yellow. Occasionally, genetics will produce a black squirrel that can be mistaken for a skunk at first sight.

In the South, isolated communities of black fox squirrels can be found. There are also black versions of the

Eastern gray squirrel typically found in the Midwest. White squirrels are another genetic anomaly. Unlike albino squirrels that lack all pigmentation, white squirrels have normal features such as dark eyes. There are a few towns in the United States that protect white squirrel colonies.

To most people, squirrels are rats with bushy tails that terrorize bird feeders. They prefer to live in tree cavities but will build a nest of leaves and twigs in treetops. Occasionally, they set up a home in an attic or a latent chimney, where they'll raise young. Besides creating an odor, they sometimes chew on wires and short-circuit electrical components. They've even been known to die inside a wall and foul a room for months.

Pruning back branches six to eight feet from the house can reduce the chances of squirrels jumping onto the roof. Trapping squirrels with appropriate steel cages sometimes can work. Use oranges, apples, walnuts or peanut butter as bait.

If you're successful, it's important to close the way they got into the attic -- often chewing through the soffit. Some animal control experts install a one-way door once the house has been squirrel-proofed so that any remaining squirrels will leave without having a way back inside.

In the wild, squirrels can live six years. They have many natural predators, including hawks, snakes, owls and foxes. In urban settings that lack predation, squirrel populations can explode. Clemson University has dealt with high squirrel populations in recent years. Trapping and sterilization methods have been used to reduce their numbers.

Squirrels feed primarily on nuts and acorns, but they've been known to damage trees by stripping bark and chewing off twigs. They frequently tight-rope walk across power lines and can short out transformers. Encircling power poles with 2-foot metal collars and enclosing short, lightweight sections of plastic pipe on the wire can reduce squirrel damage. Lincoln, Neb., reported 24 percent of power outages were caused by squirrels one year. After a squirrel-prevention program was put in place, damage was reduced 78 percent, resulting in significant savings.

In the backyard, the problem is generally at the bird feeder. Baffles, the metal umbrellas, or plastic pipe can be installed on a bird feeder post to prevent squirrels from climbing up, but they are like Cirque du Soleil acrobats. They'll find a way around a baffle. If you're looking for entertainment value, there are numerous squirrel-proof bird feeders. Some have platforms that give out when the squirrel steps on it. Others have platforms that spin.

My son, he's a good kid, so the pipe-bursting incident was a false prophecy. I did manage to get everyone's heat going in the apartment building. I relit all the furnaces but told them it must have been a gas bubble. They didn't need to know the truth.

Tony Bertauski is a horticulture instructor at Trident Technical College. To give feedback, e-mail him at tony.bertauski@tridenttech.edu.