The key to your comment was "regular" spraying. Anything you coat the lights/wires with will wear or wash off so you'd have to always re-do it. And the squirrels will watch, and laugh, and wait... and then CHEW, BABY, CHEW!!!

I have decided that the squirrels main goal in life is to take away all our gardening fun. Well squirrels, I may have a new "fun" garden hobby, and you really aren't going to like it.

Jana - whatcha gonna do?!?!

My previous experiments showed that putting duct tape at the bottoms of the bulbs would keep those squirrels from chewing through the wires. It seems there is a new rodent in town that completely ignores the tape. I've lost several previously untouched strings to this new squirrel. This photo shows where the squirrel chewed through the wire and duct tape to get the bulb. Time to buy more rope lights, I guess...

New Squirrel-like rodent released by the manufacturers of outside holiday lights -- just in time for the 2016 season.

Maybe we need to attract different birds to our yards....

(Thanks for the introduction to FreakingNews.com, petalique).

Claire

Or maybe it was Scrat the Squirrel?

(I'm bookmarking http://www.freakingnews.com!)

- Cathy

Grrrrrr! That time of year again. I've been looking high and low. As Claire and others suggested, even if sprays work, the stuff will need to be reapplied. I've considered making up an oily wax mix (outdoor stove and gloves) with bitter orange or hot chili mixed into the mix. Or even one of the commercial rodent deterent solutions. From my online reading, it appears that none of those products are all that consistently effective. Some squirrels seem to relish the hot stuff and bitter, well, bitter is relative; life is full of bitter this, sweet that.

Coutlaw -- those nut-shaped bulbs might be irresistible to rodents. But then, even my teensy LED light strings go dead. I don't always see any gnawed wiring.

And, here is a fun twist for any of you thrifty handy folks. Think you can use the bulbs in a dead light string to replace broken bulbs in another string? I've seen at least five (5) look alike bulbs, but, alas, different.

1. Long base with opposite contacts

2. Long base with staggered contacts

3. Short base with opposite contacts

4. Short base with staggered (asymetrical) contacts)

5. For any configuration 1 through 4, another factor gets added to the mix: some bulbs have an entirely round escutcheon, others have a little "key" or jog (these will not slide into a round socket without a receptacle for the "key".

Someone do the permutational math with me. I think that results in at least 8 possible bulb base configurations. No one said being a consumer was going to be easy. Well, unless your a squirrel.

Anyone want to trade two dozen round long-based, unkeyed, symmetrical-contact warm white mini LED bulbs for two dozen of the otherwise same with keyed bulbs? You can have your choice of symmetric or non-symemetrical contacts.

Does that just leave me with the option of those ugly silly junky boring Lazy-Laser light show As-seen-on-TV gadgets. Aside from not the look I want, I've heard that these units get removed by two legged squirrels.

Maybe a big ugly spotlight with an orange extension cord?

surround any tree, shrub, or railing with thick steel mesh fencing?

sprays do not work--I tried heavy duty wiring & they chewed right through that, even with no bulb attached......

Petalique - The squirrels seem to want any shape LED bulb. They have assaulted every variety I've had - bigger C9 bulbs, smaller dome bulbs, and everything in between and in any color.

LED light strings are picky. If one bulb goes out, the half (or third or quarter depending on the amount of lights) of the string it is on goes out. For example, in a string of 50 lights, 25 lights at one end will not light if only one bulb goes bad. To save the entire string of lights, you have to painstakingly go through the bad side of the string and test every [bleeping] bulb.

And yes, every darn brand of LED lights has a different bulb type and shape. I have a box of extra bulbs carefully arranged by what they are. (I cut off a picture of the lights from the box they came in and store that in a ziplock bag with the extra bulbs.) And before I throw away a useless string, I retrieve a handful of bulbs to save. With the amount of lights I have in my backyard year-round, I have to have extras on hand during the off-season.

Those special keyed bulb bases on certain LED strings drive me batty! Those are usually the first ones to fail, and you never get extras of those in the replacement pair that are always included in the box. So I've recently learned to search for and save those special bases before I throw away an unrepairable string.

I've had good results with rope lights to deter the chewers, but you can realistically only put those on solid surfaces, like tree trunks. My LED bulb lights don't get gnawed if they are on flimsy branches that don't support a squirrel's weight. But there's a vast array of areas that fall between those two extremes and keep those chomping rodents happy.

I have had good experience with net lights on bushes or hedges. I think the configuration of the wires may confuse the squirrels.

I have a laser light. It doesn't project as far and wide as advertised. I'm disappointed. And don't point it into the sky or you'll have the FAA knocking at your door.

I like the projection lights with the round plastic head that has the moving, swirling LED light inside. Again, they need to be close to your object to have the best effect. Very beautiful on large-leafed plants.

As always, good luck!

Thanks for the tips and commiseration, coutlaw.

I've considered grabbing wire cutters and transplanting some of the light units. A lot of work for no guaranteed outcome.

I have resisted going out and buying more light strings (that may not make it through a whole month). DH thinks we should just plan on spending $x each year to replace them all. But I don't like to just cave and toss dollars away.

There's got to be a more creative, if not enduring, approach. Anyone remember the group Act Up (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)? GreenPeace?

What if on a certain day, everyone peeved at the "short"-lived strings out outdoor lights bring their many strings of dead, chomped oohtdoor lights to a designated box store. Imagine the huge piles. They could be set ablaze and then people could scramble to salvage the copper.

I'm thinking of spraying all my broken light strings a metalic silver or gold, weaving them through shrub branches or forming a sort of sculpture from them. Then I can illuminate the glitzy tangle with an LED Spotlight. Bada Bing.

I like the projection lights with the round plastic head that has the moving, swirling LED light inside. Again, they need to be close to your object to have the best effect. Very beautiful on large-leafed plants.

I'm afraid that if I got one of these, I wouldn't be able to refrain from exercising my free speech and changing the dotty stars to an arrangement of words unrelated to holiday cheer.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone.

I have been trying to solve this problem for many years. I have a lot of squirrels in my yard. Today , I repaired the damage to the lights that I put up yesterday.

I also then laid out the lights that they chewed through last year. (Hopefully, to provide a "decoy" set set of bulbs/nuts for them to enjoy)

Hi Huntergee, it looks like Coutlaw has been doing a lot of fieldwork for us.

I remember that last year, only 1 month after we put larger LED light on a southern balsam, two of the light strings went DEAD! Everything looks intact. We'll try to check the two little fuses if I can locate the original container with the box and ? Extra fuses. I had bought a nylon cylinder with "wheels" onto which homeowners could wrap their string light -- better than trying to force them back into the box. So two sets of outdoor loft with medium bulbs over LED lights. Probably $20 a set. Look good, but are dead. We used them with a dawn dusk timer (and with a circuit breaker) for only a month.

DH with look for replacement fuses or new light strings. Or we may just quit tossing away $50 to $80 per year on outdoor lighting that fails. Maybe I'll go back to my old standby of warm white electric brass-based candles in the windows. When and if "America is Great Again" or remains sane in lieu of "again", I don't think simple working tree lights will be my benchmark, even though it sure would be nice.

Our wild turkeys are making a list of wants for us.

How are all of you doing? Having fun? Lights on? Candles? Cookies baking? I hope that we take time to have fun, smell the balsam and pine; visit friends, help others and count our blessings.

Thanks Petalique,

I live in Canada, north of Minnesota. I have been replacing / repairing outdoor Christmas lights for years. As well as the fuses, I still suspect that you have a break somewhere in the string. I find they really like to chew very close to the bulb. If scared away before finishing , they might have chewed through the wire but not the covering entirely. Thus , hard to find the break.

Electrician's tape and a couple of couplings, and you're good to go again. :)

huntergee1 - The squirrels chew the bulbs off because they think the bulbs are nuts. So they chew at the very bottom of the bulb to take it off. I have never been able to fix the wire so close to the bulb. I just cut off the bulb, strip off the covering of the 2 wires about 1/2", then swirl the thin copper wires together. I wrap it securely in duct tape to waterproof it and it's good to go. I gave up trying to use couplings. You have to use really tiny ones for these wires and I've had too many of them not grip and simply fall off.

petalique - I saw a "professional" LED light string in Home Depot. The box said that if one bulb goes out the rest remain lit. But I wasn't going to spend $29 on a string of 100 LED bulbs to test the theory. I can buy 5 or 6 boxes of regular 100 LED bulbs and replace them for that price. However, if the box had said "Squirrel Proof" I might've forked over my credit card then and there!!

Coutlaw, I respectfully suggest that electrician's (black) tape is better than duct tape. More waterproof, and less visible. When using the small couplings (use the ones with metal inside - they hold the wires better), wrap the wires together , and then around the whole connection. They'll never come off. Duct tape will lift , and is bulky.

Otherwise , we are essentially doing the same thing. No sense buying more, Petalique, when we can fix the ones we have in five minutes.

Message went to vapor when I opened another window. I will try later.

I am going nuts! I am one of the crazies...I have about 15k lights on my house and in my yard...I do the whole setting them to music and all. I will say that squirrels and rabbits are a constant struggle. Every year I lose lights, and extension cords to these little....well you get the idea. There is no pattern, but with 1000's of feet of cable in my yard it is like a rodent buffet, sometimes they chew off lights, other times they take out the cables like corn on the cob. I can not leave 15k lights on all day (plus they aren't on constantly as they flash to music so I will have to try something else) Hot sauce is a no go, due to weather washing it off...maybe I will try that stink spray this year? My mom recommended moth balls around my yard...but I'm not sure if that will do much besides melt in the rain and kill the yard. Well here's to another season of headaches!

John - I feel your pain. I didn't know that rabbits would chew the wires, too! Short of encasing your entire yard in chicken wire, I have no other remedies for protecting that amount of lighting. Perhaps adopt a dozen cats / dogs from the SPCA? Take up falconry? Quit your day job and patrol your yard with a shotgun for the next 4 weeks? Hire a neighborhood kid to scare the rodents away? Get a drone? Program an airhorn to go off randomly?

Boston Common Christmas Tree vs. Squirrels

Squirrels have declared war on Christmas

Claire, are your rope lights still working better than regular light strings?

(I have to say, this thread really has legs; it's almost 7 years old!)

NHBabs: The rope lights are mostly very durable. I did lose one when a squirrel chewed on the rectifier/transformer (I'm guessing that's what it is - picture about a year ago upthread), but otherwise the squirrels leave them alone. One of the rope lights has lost the lights on the end foot or two, but it's an 18 ft string so it's plenty long enough for my railing. I think this is not squirrel-related since there's no sign of gnawing.

During this time the squirrels have been steadily demolishing the few regular light strings I still put out on the wisteria. I have a backup regular string ready for when the gap in lighting is bigger - I prefer the look of the regular lights but I really like having reliable rope lighting for the main display. It's just really annoying to have lights disappear in the middle of the holiday season, particularly when it's not so easy to get replacements (and I don't want to be bothered with replacing light strings in cold weather).

I guess there are some eternal verities in life besides death and taxes - e.g. squirrels attacking light strings.

Claire

I have red LED light bulbs and the same thing happened to me. In fact, red is the only color of lights that squirrels around our house chew. I put up some red lights for halloween last year and they did the exact same thing. For some reason its the ones that are bright and large, not the normal ones. Don't know what to do now, I spent two hours putting it up and now I have to go out and buy a different set to put up.

I know , i was so bummed out about my lights:(

Hi again, guys. I'm happy to report that those decoy bulbs and wires that I put on the ground near the new lights have done the trick.

Thanks again to coutlaw76 for the suggestion. I have had no further problems in the past 4 weeks.

Hello to all my fellow LED lovers and squirrel baiters! Hope you had a relatively chew-free holiday light season.

I just came across a product highlighted in Consumer Reports that I am going to try. It is a capsaicin-infused electrical tape, Honda part number 4019-2317 Rodent Tape. (Google it.) It's a narrow tape that is wrapped around the wiring in a car's engine so mice, rats, squirrels, etc. don't chew through the wires.

I'll wrap some of my exposed LED bulb wires and see if that foils our chewers. The directions recommend using gloves when handling the tape.

I don't get it. The last 2 years the squirrels have not touched my Led lights. They have a heavy plastic wire and are only red and purple. Is it the colours?

Also, I have outdoor white/beige lights (Led) on the hedge that the squirrels have not touched.

Perhaps they are being kind to me after the previous years of abuse. I have given them some peanuts now and then....but not enough to warrant them leaving my lights alone........there is no rhyme or reason.......

That sounds interesting, coutlaw76. I had a bad experience with a mouse destroying the wiring in my car so that I had to have it towed to the dealer.

You're right, layotte94, there is no rhyme or reason to squirrel behavior. I feed them peanuts every day but that seems to be irrelevant. My rope lights have lasted several seasons and I put out some regular LED strings this season that weren't touched. Maybe a new generation of squirrels that hasn't noticed the wires yet?

Claire

A good article about squirrels and car wiring: https://www.howtopreventratsfromeatingcarwires.com/2017/03/21/prevent-squirrels-eating-car-wires/#comment-2401:

I think the squirrels are playing with our minds......they know about these comments and want to baffle us.....let's see what happens next year......they are busy chuckling and gulping down our peanuts......

I have had my lights on my trees for 20 years with no problems...and this year the squirrels got them all...I notoiced that it was a bad year for acorns and Beach nuts, so maybe the squirrels were hard up enough to eat the wires. I leave my lights on 2 trees all year, and never had a problem....any one else see that ?

Ah, so sorry, Rick - 20 years is a good long run. The bad year for acorns and nuts is very suggestive of desperate squirrels trying to eat bright colored bulbs.

Claire

I live in Florida. There are plenty of sources of nuts to be eaten in our area year round. It doesn't seem to have a connection to the squirrels chewing bulbs off the wires.

I have settled on rope lights, sphere lights, spot lights, and projection lights throughout my yard. I have very few light strings now because I've been throwing them out as they are murdered. I only have string lights on my palm tree fronds, but all the wire in between the bulbs is wrapped in dark green duct tape. That seems to deter the squirrels from chewing those. And the color blends in with the trees so it's not obvious.

This thread has been going for a few years -- it was fun re-reading all of our desperate sagas!

I read through this whole thing just now.

Has anyone had issues with the LED lights they place on your actual home? Attached to the rooflines?

I think I've mostly been reading that the squirrels are chewing through the strands that are on deck railings or in trees.

If there is a place for a squirrel to perch comfortably and chew, they'll target your light strings. I've had strings of icicle lights hanging from my roof line for years. The squirrels have never touched them. The strings hang down on hooks about 2" from the roof shingles so I guess that makes these lights unappealing.

Thanks for the first hand experience and advice!

I finally learned how to put up lights & the little guys can't bother them--make sure there

is no perch for them to sit on & no way they can grab the lights--I put strings on the trees

holding the lights away from the trees--lights have been up with no problem for months--

Laughing at the teeth squirrel pictures! I wonder if they are somehow addicted to a plastic chemical in the strands... similar to how mountain goats lick antifreeze?? We have very greedy passive aggressive squirrels (red fox or piney) that ate strands with no lights near the chew spots ( big ball twig type at end of strand. A big $ splurge ). So it’s game on for the squirrels. Now I have to teach my dog to bark in a Christmas tune to not annoy the neighbors.

I do wonder if amusement parks and year round city street displays have squirrel issues...

I think it's a problem wherever there are squirrels and lights. San Antonio, Texas reported the issue: Squirrels chewing through River Walk’s LED Christmas lights

Claire

I wonder if they use the same coating on these Christmas lights that Toyota does on the wiring in their vehicles .Soya based and attract squirrel

Interesting thought, Kim Peeters. I don't know about Toyotas and squirrels, but a mouse chewed up the wires on my VW Passat. I had to have it towed to the dealer.

Claire

I'm new to this...first year the dang squirrel has been chewing my lights, but he's only targeting the big orange LED bulbs...nothing else. If I put almonds out for him every day, it's fine, but miss one day and boom...there goes another bulb. Yesterday, hubby put out peanuts instead of almonds...yup, lost another orange bulb...sigh...I keep bypassing them with wire caps and electrical tape...pretty soon, there will be no orange ones and I'm hoping he'll leave my lights alone!

HU - The squirrels think those bulbs are nuts. Really! You'd think they'd learn after awhile, but nooooooo. They chew through the wires attached to the bulbs to take the bulbs. Doesn't matter if you feed them nuts or not. They bury them if they're not hungry. I've wrapped duct tape around the bases of the lights with mixed results. If nothing else, it slows them down.

How come they don't electrocute themselves? [g]

Squirrels are only active during the day and the lights are not on then. I did leave them on during the day for an experiment but still lost a few bulbs. It didn't leave behind any dead squirrels, though.

I have the same problem and wonder WHY? Why this year (never before) Why LED lights? Why do they chew them off, wether they are on or off? WHY colored lights and not white ones? WHY chew the ones on the railing and not on a bush, ( white ones on the bush). From other comments I see this has been going on for years, but the first time for me and I have lived in several cities in Quebec and New Brunswick. I have had lights on eaves, trees and railings and only bother the red ones on my railing this year. All very strange.... BTW, I'm 73 yrs old and its a first for me....

It matters where the bulbs are. The squirrels need a secure branch, trunk or railing to sit on. For instance, if your bush is not sturdy enough to handle their weight, then they can't sit and chew. I never had a problem with standard mini-lights (incandescents in glass) only with LED strings.

Also, sometime ago I heard that the materials in the coatings of the wires had changed; same was true with the wiring in cars' engines. So that had something to do with the increase in chewing.

I am going to try wrapping small diameter spring around the wire that is strung over the limbs where the squirrels gnaw. I envision spring similar to what closed the screen door after we went outside as kids.