Anybody else have a problem with a squirrel making a nest in their crawl space? It happened to me the first time this past winter. Don't know how it got in originally, but it stripped the fiberglass insulation in a few places to make a nest for itself. After making the nest, then eventually it found a hole in a joist that AC wires went through to go up the inside of the house. In a way, it was good that the squirrel found it because it turns out there's a space of 6 inches between 2 joists going down the length of the house that the builder decided didn't need insulation. If the squirrel hadn't found it, I wouldn't have known about it.
Fortunately, I think it was a male, at least I didn't notice any signs of babies. I've read that once a family starts, they take ownership and it's much harder to get rid of the problem. So, it appears my effort to rid my house of the intruder was limited to one squirrel. I borrowed a high power pellet rifle from a guy at church and I believe I managed to hit it in the head. It didn't die right away and I don't even know if it's dead, but it apparently left and there's no smell of death down there. Furthermore, I've since cut a few holes in that superfluous joist to get some insulation in there. I had to do that because that space is above the cinder block foundation.
So, to repair the damage and replace what the squirrel stripped away, I purchased one bag of 9 count R19 bats to replace what was damaged. It's a nasty job, but I wore the proper protection (mask, dust proof goggles, long sleeves, Army hat that covered my ears) and got it done without developing a cough or having much itching afterwards.
A few very annoying thing to note, the space between most joists is 19 inches. Not only did the "builder" not cut the insulation down from 23 to 19", they also used R11 (used for walls or anywhere else the depth is the size of 2x4's). Just because this is Arkansas, it doesn't give someone the right to skimp on insulation. Most likely I'll replace it all with R19, but as I have time and can afford to. The vapor barrier bats cost more than 2x the ones without the vapor barrier. At least the builder did put in vapor barrier bats even if they did put them in with the wrong R value and width.