Grrrr!!! Those little striped rats drive me crazy! (sorry to all you chipmunk lovers out there!) One of the first years we were in our newly built house I had grand plans of crocus all over the place. I planted 900 bulbs and I swear not much later that day the chippers were mocking me as they dug every last one of them up and ate them all! So much for any more crocus. Then a couple years later they ate all the buds off all of my asiatic lilies. The nerve! After I had kept up with the lily beetles and all!

You cannot imagine how many chippies live in the woods and my garden. Oh the smorgasbord they have!!! We have co-existed so far, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to deal with them. This spring they actually climbed up into my crabapple tree outside my back window and ate all the buds! I had never seen such a thing! The worst part is that they scold me whenever I'm in MY garden! LOL!

Newyorkrita, I grew up on LI and I really don't remember seeing too many chipmunks either. Don't let that little critter procreate or there will be big problems. Ohhhh, they're sooooo cute...NOT!!! LOL!!

There are lots of chipmonks all over Long Island. Just never around here. Very surprising to me to see it.

Just like rabbits, at first when you see chipmunks, you think - aw how cute .... then when you see all the damage both can do - they don't look so cute anymore.

What makes me crazy is that they are not even afraid of me - they see me coming and they just nibble away...

:0/

Carrie

I have two that I know of. One is living under the rocks I use for edging in the perennial bed. I've not seen any damage so far that I can blame on the little guy. But I know it won't be long before I'm out there with a net and a box to take it on a long trip.

Perhaps there will be a havaheart trap in your future!
Joann

YOu need a "sam/antha". I wish she would come back to my garden. We are having chippies again now that she is gone and my carpenter saw a huge rat also. At ;east my exterminator has stuff for the rat. There are no poisons to get rid of chippies though and traps are a problem as what are you going to do with them? I hate chippies...they have eaten and dug and destroyed a lot. c

In Minnesota, we had a chipmunk problem...they are so cute and so destructive. :) They ate all the rubber seal along the bottom of the garage door, tunneled under the back porch, etc. Once when I was having an oil change done, the mechanic came out into the waiting room and asked me if I had bird feeders. (?) I said yes and then he showed me my air filter...it was packed full of sunflower seeds. I suppose the chipmunks had been saving for a snowy day.

Yep, there was a Havahart trap in their future.

One of your neighbours must have lost a hunter cat over the winter. Chippies are edible art to my cats, very cute, especially when they freeze to hide!!! lol. I have to do a patrol through my house every am, so search for the bodies. Again, my apologies also to the chipmunk lovers, but they are not the brightest of God's creatures.

Nancy.

Well, now that I have had alot of time to think on it, I really do not think it was the chipmonk living in my garage all that time making a big mess. I think it just happened to run into that tunnel going under the garage door when I startled it. I think this because I never saw the chipmonk before that day and have seen it many times a day since then. I think it had just gotten here shortly before that and maybe was looking for a home.

Since then I do see it everyday. It has moved into the low stacked stone wall near my inground 300 gallon stocktank pond.

We used to live in the woods (in PA) with a cat who caught a chipmunk every couple of days. I liberated a few by dangling her by the back legs till she opened her mouth and the chippie fell out. She must have killed hundreds, though, before she died of old age.

One winter one of them made a nest in the fan belt of my car. Other than that they never damaged anything that I noticed.

When we had cats, the chipmunk population never caused a problem. When the cats died and we couldn't get others--not safe outside due to predators--the chipmunk and vole population exploded.

We also have stone walls and paths. They are condos to these critters. They dined upon the roots of my perennial garden--Siberian irises, peonies, baptisia, many more. One spring, my garden was almost bare. I was in shock.

The chipmunks also nested in my car's air filter. Three years in a row, I had to go to the mechanic and have it cleaned out/replaced. Acorns blew out when I turned on the air conditioner!

I now have an exterminator come several times a year. He sets rat traps (we don't have rats) and that has cut way down on the population. It took years but my garden has rebounded. They are cute but very destructive in large numbers.

cute story...it almost sounds like a commercial..reminds me of the windex blackbird and cat commercials of a few years back.

My daughter lives in a townhouse..with a tiny tiny fenced in patio...I think it is like 16 ft by 28 or something to that nature...not a yard really...a plot..a chipmonk got in under her fence, and took up housing in a living plant wall that her dad built her....he would taunt her when she watered that wall..runing out and griping at her....then when they went in..he would climb up on the outside window sill and tease the dogs thru the glass endlessly.....revenge I think for wetting his house. They nicknamed him chip...he was not really friendly, just arnery....he resided with them in his "condo" for just one summer. As entertaining as he was, they were glad when he was gone...they didnt like the dog taunting which resulted in much barking...nor the startled factor when he would pop out of nowhere to gripe at them.

No one is going to have to worry about the chipmonk doing any damage around here. I found it dead on my driveway when I went out to take pictures today. Odd really, as I feel that if a cat or fox had gotten it they would not have left it there.

Rita - Methinks you won't be mourning said chipmunk!

I've just recently noticed a chipmunk going under the stoop next to the kitchen door. It's the first one I've seen in the yard. You guys are making me nervous! There *are* a number of outdoor cats in the neighborhood, and a red fox, so maybe it won't be there long.

I have had a few plants dug out of the ground, etc, but only at a nuisance level, fortunately.