How to Deter Chipmunks From Digging and Tunneling Around Your Property
Chipmunks may be small, but their digging can become a frustrating problem around homes, gardens, patios, retaining walls, sheds, and landscaping.
One of the most common questions we hear from homeowners is:
“What can I put down to keep chipmunks from digging here?”
There are plenty of sprays, granules, ultrasonic devices, homemade remedies, and other products marketed as chipmunk deterrents. The problem is that most of these solutions are temporary at best. Rain, irrigation, sunlight, weather, and simple habituation can quickly reduce their effectiveness.
For long-term results, homeowners are usually better served by making the property less attractive, less accessible, and less suitable for burrowing.
Why Are Chipmunks Digging Around My Home?
Chipmunks naturally spend much of their lives underground. Their burrow systems provide protection from predators and weather and give them places to sleep, store food, and raise young.
Around residential properties, they often find excellent burrowing opportunities near:
Porches and decks
Retaining walls
Landscaping beds
Rock walls and decorative stone
Sheds and outbuildings
Concrete slabs and walkways
Steps and stoops
Wood piles
Dense vegetation
Areas with readily available food
If your property provides food, cover, and easy places to excavate, simply chasing away the chipmunk currently using the area may leave the same attractive conditions for the next one.
1. Remove Easy Food Sources
One of the best ways to reduce chipmunk activity is to look at why they are spending so much time on the property.
Bird feeders are a common culprit. Seed that falls beneath feeders creates a concentrated food source not only for birds, but also for chipmunks, squirrels, mice, and other wildlife.
If you use bird feeders, consider moving them farther away from the house and regularly cleaning spilled seed from the ground.
Other potential food sources include:
Outdoor pet food
Chicken or livestock feed
Open garbage
Fallen fruit and nuts
Vegetable gardens
Compost containing food scraps
Grass seed
Unsecured bags of birdseed
You don't necessarily have to eliminate every natural food source from your property. The goal is to avoid creating an artificial buffet immediately beside your home.
2. Reduce Hiding and Burrowing Areas
Chipmunks prefer areas where they can quickly disappear into cover.
Dense vegetation, stacked lumber, piles of landscape materials, debris, and other clutter can make an area particularly attractive.
Keep vegetation reasonably maintained around structures and avoid allowing unnecessary piles of materials to accumulate against foundations, sheds, garages, and retaining walls.
Firewood should also be neatly stacked and, when practical, stored away from the house.
The more open and exposed an area feels, the less comfortable it may be for a small prey species that depends on quick access to shelter.
3. Use Physical Barriers in Problem Areas
When chipmunks repeatedly dig in a specific location, physical exclusion is often more dependable than repellents.
Depending on the location, appropriately installed metal mesh, hardware cloth, buried barriers, or other exclusion materials can make excavation considerably more difficult.
This can be especially useful around:
Porches
Decks
Sheds
Steps
Landscape features
Garden beds
Vulnerable gaps around structures
The important word is installed. Simply laying a piece of mesh over a hole usually isn't an effective long-term solution.
The barrier needs to be appropriate for the construction and positioned so an animal cannot simply dig around its edge.
Never seal or block a suspected active burrow without first determining whether animals are currently using it.
4. Pay Attention to Landscaping
Beautiful landscaping can unintentionally create excellent chipmunk habitat.
Thick groundcover, large decorative stones, retaining walls, landscape timbers, mulch, and dense shrubs can create protected travel corridors and countless places to hide.
You don't need to strip your yard of landscaping. Instead, look for areas where several attractive features overlap.
For example, a bird feeder spilling seed into a heavily mulched landscape bed beside a stone retaining wall offers food, cover, and potential burrowing habitat all within a few feet.
Changing one or more of those conditions may make the area substantially less attractive.
5. Keep Garages, Sheds, and Storage Areas Clean
Housekeeping matters outside the home, too.
Spilled birdseed, grass seed, pet food, bulbs, nuts, and other stored materials can attract chipmunks to garages and sheds.
Store wildlife-attracting materials in sturdy, tightly sealed containers and regularly clean spilled food or seed.
Reducing food availability can also help discourage mice and other rodents that may be using the same areas.
6. Don't Depend on Repellent Sprays Alone
There are commercial sprays and granules marketed for deterring chipmunks and other wildlife. Some may temporarily discourage activity in a particular area.
The challenge is maintaining that effect.
Many products need to be reapplied after rain, irrigation, mowing, or simply as their scent and active ingredients degrade. During periods of frequent rain, keeping a treatment effective can require far more maintenance than most homeowners expect.
Chipmunks may also become accustomed to deterrents that don't represent a genuine threat.
The same problem applies to many homemade remedies involving strong odors or household ingredients. Even when they produce a temporary response, they don't change the underlying habitat.
If the property still offers food, shelter, and an ideal place to burrow, the incentive to return remains.
7. Be Skeptical of "Quick Fix" Devices
Ultrasonic devices, vibrating stakes, flashing lights, scent products, and similar deterrents are attractive because they promise an easy solution:
Put it in the yard and the chipmunks disappear.
Unfortunately, wildlife problems are rarely that simple.
Even when a device initially causes an animal to avoid an area, wildlife can become accustomed to sights, sounds, and sensations that repeatedly occur without consequence.
That's why we generally prefer solutions that physically or environmentally change the property rather than relying exclusively on something intended to annoy the animal.
Think Habitat Modification, Not Just Chipmunk Removal
The most important thing to remember is that removing a chipmunk and making a property unattractive to chipmunks are two different things.
If one chipmunk disappears but the property still provides abundant food, dense cover, and excellent burrowing locations, another animal may eventually take advantage of those same resources.
Long-term wildlife management focuses on changing the conditions that created the conflict.
For chipmunks, that usually means a combination of:
Habitat modification + physical barriers + good housekeeping + appropriate wildlife management when necessary.
It may not sound as exciting as a bottle promising to "repel chipmunks instantly," but addressing the reason wildlife is using an area is generally a much more practical approach.
Need Help With Chipmunk Activity Around Your Cincinnati Property?
If chipmunks are repeatedly burrowing around your home, porch, retaining wall, landscaping, or other structures, Huntsman Wildlife can help identify what is making the area attractive and determine appropriate options for managing the activity.
Rather than simply looking at the hole, we look at the property around it: food sources, shelter, travel routes, construction features, and other conditions that may be contributing to the problem.
Contact Huntsman Wildlife to schedule a wildlife inspection and develop a plan for your property.