Chipmunks are destructive, though the damage tends to be gradual rather than dramatic. Their burrowing habits can undermine foundations, patios, and retaining walls over time, and their appetite for bulbs, seeds, and young plants makes them a persistent garden pest. Most homeowners don’t notice the extent of the problem until it’s well established, partly because chipmunks are small and their burrow entrances are easy to miss.
How Burrowing Damages Structures
The biggest concern with chipmunks is what happens underground. They dig extensive tunnel systems near buildings, and these tunnels can compromise the soil supporting stairs, patios, sidewalks, and foundations. As soil shifts into the voids left by burrows, surfaces above can crack, settle unevenly, or sink. A single chipmunk’s tunnel network can stretch 20 to 30 feet, so the cumulative effect of several chipmunks living near a structure adds up quickly.
Part of what makes this damage hard to catch early is that chipmunks prefer cover. Firewood stacked against a house, ground cover plantings, or rock walls all provide the kind of concealment that lets chipmunks burrow right next to a foundation without being noticed. The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management specifically recommends keeping firewood away from buildings and avoiding continuous plantings that connect wooded areas to your home’s foundation. Stone walls near structures should be removed or mortared to eliminate gaps chipmunks use for nesting.
Garden and Landscape Damage
Chipmunks eat flower bulbs, tender young vegetation, roots, earthworms, and fungi. Tulip and crocus bulbs are particularly vulnerable because chipmunks dig them up and eat them before they ever sprout. If you’ve planted bulbs in fall and found empty holes by spring, chipmunks are a likely culprit.
Potted plants get targeted too, though not always for food. In autumn, chipmunks treat container gardens as convenient storage, digging into the soil to bury acorns and seeds. This uproots plants and damages root systems. The digging itself can kill young transplants or leave established plants exposed and dried out. In vegetable gardens, chipmunks go after seeds, strawberries, and other low-growing crops, often taking just enough from each plant to be frustrating without making the source of the problem obvious.
Ticks, Lyme Disease, and Health Risks
Chipmunks carry ticks, and those ticks can carry Lyme disease. Research supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health found that small mammals like chipmunks, mice, and shrews play a major role in transmitting the Lyme bacterium to ticks. Ticks aren’t born infected. They pick up the bacteria when feeding on an infected animal, then pass it to humans or pets through later bites.
What makes chipmunks especially relevant to Lyme risk is their population density near homes. The research found that the strongest predictors of Lyme disease risk in a given year are the number of mice and chipmunks the previous year, along with acorn abundance two years prior (acorns fuel rodent population booms). A yard with a thriving chipmunk population is, by extension, a yard with higher tick exposure. Chipmunks also carry fleas, which can spread to pets that spend time outdoors.
How to Identify Chipmunk Damage
Chipmunk burrow entrances are about the size of a silver dollar, cleanly dug with little to no dirt piled around the opening. This distinguishes them from several other burrowing animals. Norway rat holes are slightly larger (two to three inches wide) and smoothed from repeated use. Vole holes are much smaller, about the size of a dime, and typically found around plant roots. Ground squirrel holes look similar in size to chipmunk holes but usually appear in pairs, with a second entrance within about 20 feet.
Chipmunks are active during the day, so you’ll often see them if you watch for a few minutes. Rats are secretive and rarely visible in daylight. If you’re finding clean, round holes near your foundation or garden and spotting small striped rodents darting between cover, you’re dealing with chipmunks.
Protecting Your Property
Physical barriers are the most reliable defense. Quarter-inch galvanized hardware cloth, buried 6 to 12 inches deep and extending two and a half to three feet above ground, keeps chipmunks out of garden beds. For extra protection, attaching 12 inches of metal flashing to the top of the cloth creates an unstable surface that deters climbing. The same quarter-inch hardware cloth works for sealing openings in buildings, sheds, and crawl spaces.
Landscape changes also help. Keep ground cover, shrubs, and dense plantings from forming a continuous corridor between wooded areas and your home. Move woodpiles, rock piles, and debris away from foundations. These steps remove the cover chipmunks need to feel safe burrowing near structures. For bulb plantings, some gardeners lay hardware cloth flat over newly planted beds, just below the mulch layer, which lets shoots grow through while blocking digging.
Trapping and Legal Considerations
If exclusion and habitat modification aren’t enough, trapping is an option, but the rules vary by state. In New York, for example, chipmunks can legally be trapped if they’re causing property damage. However, live-trapping and relocating them somewhere else is illegal. You cannot release a trapped chipmunk in a park, on public land, or on someone else’s property. This rule exists because relocation spreads diseases like rabies and Lyme, stresses the animal, and simply moves the problem. If you need an animal removed, the state requires you to work with a licensed nuisance wildlife control operator.
Other states have their own regulations, and some require permits even for lethal trapping on your own property. Check with your state’s fish and wildlife agency before setting any traps. Snap traps baited with peanut butter or seeds are commonly used where legal, while bucket-style traps and cage traps are other options depending on local rules.