Depends on where they are. If I’m guessing right, they’ve invaded a space occupied by some of your station’s less rodent-gnawing-proof equipment.
I’ve never had to take out tree squirrels, but have had good success against flying squirrels and other more land-based rodents with Bromethalin-based poisons made by Ramik. Tomcat also makes them. I like the Ramik stuff because they come in large blocks - you have to secure them (I use wire threaded through the blocks, screwed to a board) - so they are effective for longer. Bromethalin is a neurotoxin that kills with a single feeding, so you can get a lot of results from each installation. Of course, OSHA might not approve without “proper safeguards”(which would probably reduce effectiveness significantly). Your Facilities Management team would probably have their own ideas.

Possible downside is that it’s pretty effective against any mammals or birds. Tough to come up with a fixture opening that would be big enough to admit a full-grown squirrel but exclude a cat.

I use the stuff to control all the rodents that try to find shelter from the Maine winter in my attic or basement. No cats or dogs there, anything else I don’t need to care about. You can get the stuff in any hardware store around here.

 

I have been actively doing that on the airchain for Channel 9. I'd honestly never looked that closely at the airchain for WGN America, assuming it to be relatively modern by comparison. I didn't realize until recently that there are still vestiges of the original 70s-era design stuck in it.

But there's only so much time in the day, and I have to treat all of that as secondary to:

1: Building new stuff, and
2: Dealing with all of the unique and challenging special requests which the busiest news department of any local TV station in the country (literally, we do about 29 hours a day (on average) of local programming, split across two channels, three control rooms, and six studios) generates on a daily basis.

I found more coax 10b-2 Ethernet today. This segment starts at an AUI (remember when Ethernet adapters used DB-15 connectors?) at the old NetPOP room (the one which still has active POTS lines terminated on Western Electric branded wooden blocks). The sad part is that I have utterly no idea what it does, or where it goes. It's completely un-labeled.

 

Not allowed to fire a gun in the city of Chicago? Dafug.

22 short sounds like a loud BB gun.

 

Yeah, we don't exactly have any TSC locations nearby.




They have invaded satellite dish #8, and have occupied it for several years:




This dish is covered on the front by a thin, teflon-impregnated fabric stretched taut, and is electrically heated inside. (This prevents snow and ice from accumulating, which impede RF transmission.)

I have no idea why the squirrels prefer this specific dish. I mean, yes, I get that it's warm and cozy and sheltered inside, but so are all of the other dishes surrounding it in the yard. The squirrels don't care. They like this specific one. They chew through the fabric cover, and then start filling the dish with nuts / twigs / etc. Every time we clean it out and sew a patch over the hole, they just gnaw a new hole in the cover and start again.

I'm at my wits' end. My plan is to place some kind of substance on the inside of the dish (beneath the cover) to make them stop wanting to nest inside it. I'm not concerned about birds / dogs / the coyote (yes, we actually have a coyote, in the middle of Chicago, which considers our lot part of its territory) simply because they don't fit through the squirrel-hole.

I'll check into the stuff you listed.

 

I've used the Tomcat baits for rats and they worked fine.

 

It’s been many years, but I used to work in a garden center and we sold a product that was a “Squirrel and Bat Repellent”. Might still be available and would save you from the potential hassle of local tree- and skwerl-huggers should anyone find out. Secondary poisoning of predators might be something that garners unwanted local attention for the station.

 

The local Home Depot stocks Tomcat brand Bromethalin blocks, as well as rabbit / groundhog / squirrel repellent. Going to pick some up tomorrow.

 

I'll admit that it's a concern, but this part of the facility is inside a chain-link fence. My assumption is that anything capable of getting inside it is not sufficiently cute to generate public outrage.

 

In regards to predators, my first concern would be more inclined toward birds of prey. Is there any way to wrap the access path the squirrels use with some of that spiky wire stuff they use to keep pigeons from nesting?

From the googs:
Do bird spikes deter squirrels?Bird-X Spikes. Providing 10 linear feet of spikes per box, this bird deterrent is also a very effective squirrel deterrent around your attic access points. The spikes are long enough where the squirrels can't step on them, nor can they step through them.

 

Super calibri. Shot from a .22 rifle and can go through both sides of a can, but sound like pffft. Short range.

 

He would have to get a black guy to do it. White people aren't allowed to have guns in Chicago unless police.

 

Someone is overdue for their sensitivity training refresher.

 

Point well taken. I should have said police or a politician.

 

Not sure how I'd attach them to the rim of the dish. The cover, as I said, is teflon-impregnated. Adhesives don't adhere to it well, which is why we have to sew the patches on.





Yeah, I don't think I want to sit outside in 20° weather all day, shooting bullets at an expensive satellite dish.

For a number of reasons.

 

^ Carbon fiber mesh. Would it interfere with the signal?

 

No idea, but snow and ice would definitely stick to it, which would defeat the purpose of the cover being there in the first place.

I went to home depot this morning, and the lady in that department recommended that I try a bag of dried blood. Says that it "smells like death" and repels vermin.



So, now I have a bag of blood in my office. We'll see how it works.

 

 

 

^ Peak Florida Man.

 

in a couple of weeks it'll be spring up there. shoot them before they get on the dish. i don't think it would take all day.