Squirrel in shop attic WTH ? UPDATE

Over the winter, a squirrel got into my 30 X 40 shop, which has a drop ceiling under a pitched roof, metal building.
Obviously can get in & out from somewhere besides doors.
Spent the day up there moving boxed stuff to totes & cleaning up.
Found 2 holes big enough leading to ridge vent; covered the holes with wire mesh.

No sooner get done, cut up the old boxes, clean up, then I hear him running back & forth on the drop ceiling.
He wasn't up there when I was.

I've tried the powder they supposedly hate, the high-frequency plug-in, no success. I feel like Bill Murray.

I'm open to ideas, what works ?

Put a couple of shallow cups of antifreeze up there.. they like the sweet smell and will drink it
EDIT
My shop is insulated and I dont want them tearing up my insulation so I keep a small cup of it on
the shop floor.. I dont have pets so no worry there

Had a redheaded woodpecker in my attic yesterday! He was pecking the hell out of the area he got in at and finally got out. Fixed is so he can't get back in. It has lived in an old tree in the front yard for years. A few years ago there were a couple babies in the hole he chopped in the tree. The tree is long dead and getting ready to fall on my house, but I haven't had the heart to cut it down as it comes back every year. They are cool, but it would have been bad if I couldn't get him out of the attic!

Had a squirrel in my house. He came in through the chimney and the clean out on my old boiler. I put a have a heart trap with a paper plate with peanut butter on it in the trap less than 45 minutes later I heard the trap close. Drove him 2 towns over and past rt80 and the turnpike and let him go in the park. Capped the chimney.

Maybe the trap is the hot setup; I'm not going to use poison or hurt him, just don't want him up there.
For that matter, I don't know if it's the same squirrel, or what.
We have a lot of them running around, and somehow this one is getting peanuts; cleaned up lots of shells.

This,it works quick,did that with about a half dozen last year,both red and grey. and Chipmunks,but I keep this guy around.

Yes it works.. you already have them trapped.. try that is a big area and see.. they are wild animals waiting
to destroy your place.. I had to replace the roof on my last house due to a coon

Little critters like this we do not kill - we trap them. A few years ago, a red squirrel took up residence in our garage, so we live-trapped him with peanut butter on a cracker to lure him in. Got him pretty quickly. Then we drove him about a mile away & pulled down a dirt road - it was dark out. We brought the trap out about 20' from the car & let him out. He ran under the car & just sat there. Finally, he boogied. We were joking on the way back home that he would probably beat us there!

My cousin would have it in the pot for dinner.

I had a groundhog burrow into my pole barn last year. Even caught the fu*$ker on a trail cam. And there's one squirrel that was around last year we couldn't get rid of. It disappeared last fall so I think or at least hope a fox got it but now that I've said that it'll probably show up again. One of my projects this year is to do something different to seal it up better.

I usually don't like going the killing route but when they are getting somewhere where they can cause damage all bets are off. But the problem I have with trying to poison them is if they end up dieing in a bad spot that you can't find or get to it when it starts stinking.

had a family in our attic.
used the have a heart traps with peanut butter and regular nuts as well.

according to the internet they can find their way back if it is under 5 miles.

And my wife made me take the ones I caught, days apart, back to the same place I dropped off the first one so they could be together.

anyway I put them in line with where they were coming in. You could tell they had to walk through the trap to get into their hole.
We tried to keep them out first by covering the hole but they chewed threw aluminum siding to get in.

Every few years I'll get a field mouse in the house. Pretty sure they sneak in through the double door in the basement when I'm moving the mowers in and out. One or two generally not a big deal but last year it clearly turned out to be one of each sex because it ended up being about 14 or 16 before it was done.

The most annoying part was the almost complete lack of help I got from the beagle and the three cats. Beagles are supposed to be good at flushing prey out in to the open and this one did kinda ok with that. Most of the time he missed it when the mouse went running for the other corner of the room. The cats clearly had figured out the main traffic route the mice were taking and that helped greatly with the trap placement later. They figured out early on that if they snagged one and brought it to me to play fetch with that I'd grab it and throw it back in the woods.

The best mouser in the bunch would legit catch one and then run the other way so I couldn't take her toy away from her. The other two mostly did catch and release. When I got tired of playing that game, the traps came out. Maybe next time I'll just cut back on the kibble so they take things more seriously.

Appreciate the info, thanks.
Wow, a 5-mile memory, huh ?
I'll drive past hundreds of the little guys to drop "mine" off 5 miles away

Must be 3 more vent holes for the ridge cap, but those are a real PITA to get to.

i HATE RED SQUIRRELS !!!!!!!

That's some pretty wild upholstery you got goin' on there. We need pictures.

that was "show car attempt" back in 1974. [i should have had my azz kicked ? ]
anyway, i was SUPER fortunate that mr. red squirrel only ate up the carpet and chewed up the defrost vents, leaving the "custom" upholstery material intact.
with that said, i'll bet not many have seen material like this, so it is going to stay.
i'll have to see if i have pics of the inside.
one thing that was done was to convert the low back seats to high backs. [high backs were the ticket back then] i have already talked to a friend of mine that did upholstery back in the day, and he is pretty sure he can "un-convert" them back to the original low backs and re-use the material.

you can call the squirrel cops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16fG1sDagU

I hate squirrels! Had them build nests in the soffits twice now. They can tear stuff up! Got rid of them using large snap type rat traps. If they're invading my territory they're gonna die! Tree rats!! Learned to keep trees,branches away from the house so they have no way to get up there. Been pretty good for a few years now.

I wouldn't go the poison route. Last thing you want is for the critter to get somewhere you can't find and have a mystery smell for the season.

Before setting the trap drill a hole in one corner and attach a piece of wire or chain. They can hightail away with trap in tow if they don't get a good whack.

I do that when I use traps.. just a length of Mig welding wire

Yep!!

UPDATE :

Today I got up above the drop ceiling, using 2 ladders & prop rod.
When the shop was built, they made some 3" holes next to every truss to vent into the ridge cap.
While the cap/roof gaps are maybe an inch tops, apparently that's been enough.
I could see a trail of peanut shells & insulation running down from those holes to the drop ceiling.
So, I stapled some wire mesh over each hole.

Seems almost silly now, but man, squirrels sure can squeeze into tight spaces !

if they have a nest in there, that won't stop them.
like I said mine chewed through aluminum siding.

Like I said.. antifreeze

my "little buddy" chewed through stainless steel screen to get in the window i left open a crack for ventilation.
a box trap and a tiny "bang stick" fixed the problem........

And,95 % of squirrel problems are with red's,not gray.

^^^^^ a resounding YES !

Update #2 :

In today's episode of As The Squirrel Turns...

Yesterday bought a Havaheart trap, got some peanut butter, and in less than an hour I had a caged grey squirrel.
Took little Rocket J for a few miles of road trip and let him off in a forested area.
Reset the trap for the next contestant but haven't heard a peep up there yet.

Sounds familiar lol