Two student housing complexes, Stevens Court and Mercer, are the focus of squirrel-trapping efforts by Housing and Food Services (HFS) employees. The rodents have been wreaking havoc by burrowing into wooden areas of the buildings and transforming attics into cozy new nests.

“The squirrels cause a lot of damage to our buildings,” said Dennis Fields, HFS facilities manager. “They defecate up there. They urinate. They make a big mess.”

Students are advised not to intentionally release the squirrels from the traps. Administrators have been instructed to discipline any students caught tampering with the traps or releasing squirrels from the traps.

Fields and other facilities employees use four traps to capture the squirrels and move them to other locations. The squirrels are not harmed in the trapping process.

Squirrels caught in the traps are later released by facilities employees at other locations on campus. The HFS employees try to avoid releasing the squirrels near any wooden frame buildings that they can burrow into.

The traps are relatively simple devices. Fields usually uses a smattering of peanut butter to initially entice a squirrel into entering the trap. A hungry squirrel entering the trap should trip a hatch that closes the only door to the trap, thus trapping the squirrel inside.

“As soon as they pick up the peanut, they’re stuck in there,” said Micheal Rios, a junior living in Stevens Court. “I’ve seen them catch at least four squirrels.”

Rios said he heard that squirrels burrowed into a neighboring apartment by eating their way through the building’s wooden walls. The squirrels subsequently flooded the apartment by tampering with the building’s foundation.

Squirrels are usually only an annoyance for most residents. Students complain that they hear mice or rats moving around in the attics of buildings at night, but Fields said that they are really hearing squirrels.

“We’ve had cases where they’ve chewed through ceilings,” Fields said, referring to an incident in a family housing unit where a squirrel poked its head through a hole in the ceiling and frightened a child.

“There are squirrels everywhere, and we love squirrels just as much as everybody,” Fields said. “We don’t want to kill them. We want to catch them and move them someplace.”

[Reach reporter Andrew Doughman at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]