Dang, who is that skinny kid?
Did you lose those size 34 swimmers trunks? Or did time at the BBQ make them antiques?
Back Yard Critter (UPDATE)
- Thread starter blume357
- Start date
Did you lose those size 34 swimmers trunks? Or did time at the BBQ make them antiques?
tabora
LCP II .22LR, 10/22, Mini-14
Our local chipmunks can empty the bird feeder in a single day. Starting tomorrow, they're getting live-trapped and relocated to the transfer station. I'm not allowed to whack them...
Why is it people today are so inclined to "relocate" problem wildlife? All you are doing is moving the problem from your area to someone else's. Problem animals need to be eliminated.
Here we have a law that doesn't allow the relocation of coyotes. Yet people will hire companies that free advertise they relocate them. The companies aren't cited or censured in anyway because the politicians want to keep the money and votes from the greenies coming in.
Here we have a law that doesn't allow the relocation of coyotes. Yet people will hire companies that free advertise they relocate them. The companies aren't cited or censured in anyway because the politicians want to keep the money and votes from the greenies coming in.
OP
I expect contender will chim in soon... he is the expert on this. I for the first 10 years of my chimney sweep career would 'dispose' of young chimney swifts that were nesting in folks chimneys...they make a heck of a racket when momma or daddy come down to feed them... then we in the industry learned that these birds pretty much own the chimney when they are nesting... it's a federal law from the 1930's and to disturb them is a big no no and to kill one is a 15K fine. As I understand it most wild life is protected by the state... this kind of falls back on old English law in that the king owned the wild life and you had to have his permission to hunt or fish.
contender
Ruger Guru
"Why is it people today are so inclined to "relocate" problem wildlife? All you are doing is moving the problem from your area to someone else's. Problem animals need to be eliminated."
Ok blume,, here I am.
People are inclined to relocate wildlife because of how they were indoctrinated by Disney & "Bambi." Yet,, as noted in the quote,, a problem is a problem. You just move the problem.
What MANY fail to know or accept,, is the LAWS! Especially Federal & State laws.
You can be charged with a FELONY if you relocate wildlife off private property, (your place,) onto Federal property. And in most states,, the same applies to State property. You do not own the property,, and you could be putting a diseased animal onto that property.
In states that do allow the relocation of wildlife,, there are usually restrictions about that as well. In some states,, no relocation, PERIOD, of animals that are potential rabies vectors.
And if you can legally relocate an animal,, the ONLY property you are allowed to put it on is your own property, OR,, with written permission from the property owner.
And just like blume has said,, it's a big no-no to even kill some animals,, even when they are a problem. Chimney Swifts,, do make a racket when the young are getting close to being able to fly & all. I get calls myself where people think they have bats in their chimney's. Usually in July.
But the problem animals. I ask people all the time; "If you own property,, do you want someone dumping their problems on your property?"
Disney,, tree hugger type TV programs,, animal rights activists types who promote their agenda over all others,, etc have given the general populace an attitude about "saving the animals above all else!"
Heck,, just this past weekend,, I watched a show on Earth TV,, about bears in a valley in British Columbia. And the problems associated with human/bear interactions. They had one guy who spent time in the woods studying the bears & defended them. And they had a guy who had, in self defense,, shot a bear. It took the wildlife folks 6 months to do their investigation & finally clear the guy. Even with a video showing the bear charging him. And there were several stories of bears attacking people or pets. Plus they break into homes etc.
I was a bit surprised by Earth TV,, in that they did actually show a few quotes from animal lovers who verbally attacked the guy who shot the bear. One said, "I wish the bear had killed & eaten you!"
The show did show how the wildlife officials had to kill 15-20 bears annually due to them being a problem.
But the animal rights activists,, they PREFER that animals have rights over humans, to the point of accepting it when an animal kills a human. Even kids.
People have removed themselves from living off the land, and with the animals where they actually see & understand the reality of life around animals.
Thanks Disney!
Ok blume,, here I am.
People are inclined to relocate wildlife because of how they were indoctrinated by Disney & "Bambi." Yet,, as noted in the quote,, a problem is a problem. You just move the problem.
What MANY fail to know or accept,, is the LAWS! Especially Federal & State laws.
You can be charged with a FELONY if you relocate wildlife off private property, (your place,) onto Federal property. And in most states,, the same applies to State property. You do not own the property,, and you could be putting a diseased animal onto that property.
In states that do allow the relocation of wildlife,, there are usually restrictions about that as well. In some states,, no relocation, PERIOD, of animals that are potential rabies vectors.
And if you can legally relocate an animal,, the ONLY property you are allowed to put it on is your own property, OR,, with written permission from the property owner.
And just like blume has said,, it's a big no-no to even kill some animals,, even when they are a problem. Chimney Swifts,, do make a racket when the young are getting close to being able to fly & all. I get calls myself where people think they have bats in their chimney's. Usually in July.
But the problem animals. I ask people all the time; "If you own property,, do you want someone dumping their problems on your property?"
Disney,, tree hugger type TV programs,, animal rights activists types who promote their agenda over all others,, etc have given the general populace an attitude about "saving the animals above all else!"
Heck,, just this past weekend,, I watched a show on Earth TV,, about bears in a valley in British Columbia. And the problems associated with human/bear interactions. They had one guy who spent time in the woods studying the bears & defended them. And they had a guy who had, in self defense,, shot a bear. It took the wildlife folks 6 months to do their investigation & finally clear the guy. Even with a video showing the bear charging him. And there were several stories of bears attacking people or pets. Plus they break into homes etc.
I was a bit surprised by Earth TV,, in that they did actually show a few quotes from animal lovers who verbally attacked the guy who shot the bear. One said, "I wish the bear had killed & eaten you!"
The show did show how the wildlife officials had to kill 15-20 bears annually due to them being a problem.
But the animal rights activists,, they PREFER that animals have rights over humans, to the point of accepting it when an animal kills a human. Even kids.
People have removed themselves from living off the land, and with the animals where they actually see & understand the reality of life around animals.
Thanks Disney!
OP
Have a neighbor who is one of those Disney critter lovers like Contender mentions.... she gets upset when our local red tailed hawk comes down and snatches one of her fat over fed squirrels..... seems a bit hypocritical to me.
themousethatroared
Single-Sixer
I hate every time I start writing it sounds like something between the opening verse of "Born Under A Bad Sign" and "Gloom, Despair, And Agony On Me"... With the exception to the roof crap in the homeowners insurance thread, most of the rest of this relates to why it feels like I have a code book stuck up my behind cross ways.
The witch up the street has a "natural pollinator garden" built in her front yard. It's a six foot tall brush pile. The code says it's supposed to be all native species, but it's exotic orchids and hybridized sunflowers, and the property maintenance inspector says he can't identify any of the plants, and refuses to find anyone who can.
The property maintenance inspector claims he can't do anything about it, but he's writing me tickets for growing tomatoes in my backyard. The witch feeds animals every night and is proud that she discovered opossums love bananas. I don't know what she is feeding the coyotes, but they showed up too.
We never had chipmunks in 60 years, and thanks to the sunflowers in the brush pile, we now we have a legion of them. They are digging under driveways, sidewalks, and foundations, running constantly between the brush pile and the burrows they make on neighboring properties, stockpiling sunflower seeds.
The chipmunks are doing thousands of dollars of damage to our cars, every year, eating wiring harnesses and rusting out fuel tanks on which they make their nests, and pee sulfuric acid.
The property maintenance inspector says that if a chipmunk doesn't jump up and kiss him on the end of the nose, then he didn't see it, and if he didn't see it, he can't do anything about it. He will not accept photos or video from the person filing the complaint.
Animal Control says they're native species and they can do nothing.
Vector Control handed me a stack of rat traps and glue boards and said I can't use them outside because they could catch unintended animals. I'm supposed to invite the chipmunks into my home and have them lay down on the traps.
Conservation says they are native species and entitled to live here. It's only illegal to feed them more than several hundred feet from your house, because the law is designed to prohibit chumming deer to a kill area. They were the ones suggesting some predators would move in to take care of the problem. I can get a squirrel hunting permit from the state, after a couple hundred dollars in hunter education, but they'll arrest me for discharging a firearm anywhere in the county other than a shooting range.
The Health Department says that if I get bit and come down with a disease, they can declare it a health emergency.
They will run into the downspouts to hide and I was trapping them and driving them across the river. That was before a thousand dollars for the last gas tank repair. The sobs never kicked in to pay for gas. State law prohibits relocation, just like @contender said. I've been on the receiving end of a lot of citations, so I sat down and read the book, and it says that the property owner is solely responsible for dealing with an infestation of pests. I can't afford to pay someone to do it for me.
The one source of humor is that I can call the county to haul away the carcass, and they are going to get a call for every single one. They'll have a record of the pickup and the bill from the subcontractor who is getting premium money. And after a couple thousand dollars, they might see a pattern that will indicate there is an infestation in need of a declaration of an emergency and extermination.
Alternately, one of the other neighbors came up with a str4ategy for a different problem:
"Do exactly the opposite of what you want to do to solve the problem and make everything so much worse that someone has to do something."
I could use about a half a dozen black rat snakes, seven foot long. I walk up the street and start hurling those things into the brush pile. The witch comes out screaming, and she'll have the fricking national guard in there within thirty minutes with flame throwers and bulldozers, leveling the brush pile to clear out those snakes.
that sounds like a lot of aggravation.seems like first step is get a new property maintainence inspector. good luck to you
Not usually for this, but go over the property management guy's head. File complaints about his failure to act. Organize and see she is charged with her violations. Make staying there untenable.
contender
Ruger Guru
"The chipmunks are doing thousands of dollars of damage to our cars, every year, eating wiring harnesses and rusting out fuel tanks on which they make their nests, and pee sulfuric acid."
As a pro in this field,, I'd say the damage to vehicles is most likely caused by mice or rats. They too will go to the type of habitat you described. But because they are more secretive, and not often seen,, people will blame what they see or think causes a problem.
Now,, a call to the County Health Dept saying that rats & mice are infesting the area,, and it's a public health hazard. That may get you some action. Even better if you can get some video by using infrared game cameras,, to document the critters. Get a few good videos of rats or mice & file formal complaints with the Health Dept.
Let the Health Dept come down on the property maintenance inspector AND the woman.
Push the "hantavirus" fear.
As a pro in this field,, I'd say the damage to vehicles is most likely caused by mice or rats. They too will go to the type of habitat you described. But because they are more secretive, and not often seen,, people will blame what they see or think causes a problem.
Now,, a call to the County Health Dept saying that rats & mice are infesting the area,, and it's a public health hazard. That may get you some action. Even better if you can get some video by using infrared game cameras,, to document the critters. Get a few good videos of rats or mice & file formal complaints with the Health Dept.
Let the Health Dept come down on the property maintenance inspector AND the woman.
Push the "hantavirus" fear.
OP
In reference to Themousethatroared post...
I'm still trying to figure out what a 'Property Maintenance Inspector' is....
You can't grow tomatoes in your back yard? I think you need to move back to the United States and get out of that foreign country as soon as you can.
I'm still trying to figure out what a 'Property Maintenance Inspector' is....
You can't grow tomatoes in your back yard? I think you need to move back to the United States and get out of that foreign country as soon as you can.
That's what people should do, alright. Place an electrically powered device on top of an explosive liquids-filled, rat pee-rusted container in order to get mug shots of the perps.
I took a different approach. First, I cleaned up the overhanging bushes that are hideouts for the rats, etc. to make those locations less attractive. I placed rat-bait traps in those bushes to dehydrate the little devils. Next, I put rat poison in paper cupcake molds, and Velcro-taped those molds in various places under the hood of my SUV. That seemed to eliminate the problem - no more droppings or pieces of nut shells under the hood - at least for a few weeks.
Finally, I made the ultimate sacrifice. I cleaned out my garage - threw away all of the years-old stuff I just KNEW I'd use/need some day - and started parking my SUV inside that garage. Viola. No more chewed-up wiring harnesses.
I had always wondered what a garage was good for...now I know.
I took a different approach. First, I cleaned up the overhanging bushes that are hideouts for the rats, etc. to make those locations less attractive. I placed rat-bait traps in those bushes to dehydrate the little devils. Next, I put rat poison in paper cupcake molds, and Velcro-taped those molds in various places under the hood of my SUV. That seemed to eliminate the problem - no more droppings or pieces of nut shells under the hood - at least for a few weeks.
Finally, I made the ultimate sacrifice. I cleaned out my garage - threw away all of the years-old stuff I just KNEW I'd use/need some day - and started parking my SUV inside that garage. Viola. No more chewed-up wiring harnesses.
I had always wondered what a garage was good for...now I know.
Just who is it you think WANTS YOUR CHIPMUNKS or rattlesnakes?
Get a bucket and drown your own chipmunks or what ever you want but that "relocate" is BS. Nobody else wants them either. Better yet STOP FEEDING THEM. You created your own problem.
I keep traps set ALL the time. With a little wire ball of bait. Where I live it MINE, I have a few acres and they have a hundred THOUSAND acres of Hoosier National Forrest to live it. Skunks, possum, Chipmunks, squirrels, mice, shrews, kill 'em all. If it makes ME say yuck, its not mine, then drown it, step on it, or shoot it. Native or "relocated" I don't even ask 'em. Feed 'em to the buzzards.
Snakes get a pass, they are on my side.
Get a bucket and drown your own chipmunks or what ever you want but that "relocate" is BS. Nobody else wants them either. Better yet STOP FEEDING THEM. You created your own problem.
I keep traps set ALL the time. With a little wire ball of bait. Where I live it MINE, I have a few acres and they have a hundred THOUSAND acres of Hoosier National Forrest to live it. Skunks, possum, Chipmunks, squirrels, mice, shrews, kill 'em all. If it makes ME say yuck, its not mine, then drown it, step on it, or shoot it. Native or "relocated" I don't even ask 'em. Feed 'em to the buzzards.
Snakes get a pass, they are on my side.
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OP
Our 15 year old Catahoula has trouble getting out the dog door and so lately when I get up I just leave the back door to the deck open for him for a few hours... seems this was not a good idea at least according to 'She Who Must Be Obeyed".... I'm out on the front porch just a while ago, still can hardly walk from Monday's fall and it hurts when I do and so she brings me a glass of water and starts to go back inside and then tells me we have a uninvited guest in the living room... yep, Slinky Jr. all 6.5ft of him... chased him out onto the porch and then he found his way out... here's a picture of him headed out onto our upper driveway,
tabora
LCP II .22LR, 10/22, Mini-14
Well, today Mr. Chipmunk went for a ride to a town park a few miles away. My wife is happy, and that's all that matters.
I'm apparently allowed to whack mice and red squirrels, but not chipmunks...
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themousethatroared
Single-Sixer
They burned down Chicago, so they created a fire code. Then a building code, fire code, plumbing code, electrical code... It's all supposed to keep people from getting killed. Somewhere along the way, we all got too civilized, and they came up with the idea of protecting property values, so they came up with the property maintenance code (IPMC2015 in this case). Then they hired a bunch of petty tyrants who are only required to have one year of "industry experience" to become Judge Dredd and write tickets for people who don't have a gate on their fence, or something important like that. They set up their own system of ordering people what to do, intimidate them into compliance, and hide things like the text of the code. For the people who don't obey, once a week they have a "hearing" in a strip-mall-kangaroo-court, even Thursdays in the southern part of the county, odd Thursdays in the northern. They get 75 people/victims every Thursday. The judge gives a speech about "we're all here to keep the county beautiful". There's nothing about law, justice, or the blind lady with the scales. Then the prosecutor calls each person into the back room where they are supposed to beg for an extension on the deadline, take orders from the inspector on what to do, and take the paperwork they are given to the judge to get scheduled to show up in a month with proof they did what they were told. They aren't set up for having an actual trial, and the idea that someone would plead not guilty and demand they prove their case is a foreign concept.
People call the inspector on someone they want to get at and screw with. In this case, the witch up the street with the brush pile is a retired county employee, flushed out of the prosecutor's office for being a nut case, and she hates everyone in the neighborhood. A retired state corrections employee moved in down the street, and the two share a caldron to stir. Witch #2 ran a fence across our property line, installed security cameras pointing in our bedroom windows, and has been using her status as a retired civil servant to weaponize the county police and inspector. We have no sheriff.
We were first hit with a string of "rubbish" complaints. Vague to the point that you can't figure out what the hell they want cleaned up. I complied with the first one, did a bunch of work, and the inspector came back and said "Oh, it was only about that one thing, you're cleared." The next day I got another complaint in the mail. I wrote an appeal telling them to be specific and sent it with USPS tracking. After four months, they claim they never got it and issued a summons. We spent three months trying to get a court date. The trial for a rubbish ticket took an hour and a half, and most of it was arguing over the buckets we use to grow tomatoes in, in our back yard, behind our house, not visible from the street. They have to drive by three cars up on blocks, a yard with pallets and rotten plywood stacked against trees, and a house that the roof fell in, in order to get to our house, but they can't find those to cite. And this is the same guy who can't do anything about the brush pile or chipmunks, but he's after Moby Dick with these buckets we grow tomatoes in.
The code was written in the early industrial revolution and prohibits piles of manufacturing scrap including rubber, cartons, boxes, metal, wood, crockery, glass, ash, coal, and excelsior, outside or inside the building. The inspector could not find the definition of rubbish in the code, or anything prohibiting buckets. His best argument was "The county trained us to recognize rubbish when we saw it". The prosecutor argued that "plastic is like rubber, and buckets are like boxes, so buckets are by definition rubbish". So, buckets are outlawed in the entire county. Also, everything metal, glass, and ceramic, banned from outside or inside any structure in the county.
We got the inspector to admit under oath that he has been collaborating with witch #2 and she got him to write not less than four (more) complaints in an effort to rack up fines and get our property seized. They objected and refused to answer to the question if his relationship with witch #2, and if she had performed sex acts in exchange for his cooperation.
After the 90 minute hearing.........for a rubbish ticket, the judge wanted six weeks to deliberate. He can't find in our favor, because then they have to declare the code is unenforceable. They can't find against us, because we won so well that the inspector took off out of the courtroom like his ass was on fire and he was trying to find a bucket of water to sit in and put it out. We expect some kind of split decision.
The prosecutor has not yet been fired. He's still on the court docket prosecuting cases.
The inspector has also apparently not yet been fired. We haven't seen him around to be serviced by witch #2 for over a month. If they fired him, they would have to throw out all the tickets he wrote, which would clear the docket and cause a scandal in the news.
So far, it has cost the county way over ten thousand dollars in labor for the inspector, prosecutor, judge, court reporter, bailiff, and all this crap.........on a rubbish ticket. They have at least two more of these things coming at us in the pipes. This one was the one they had the best chance to win, and they got their asses handed to them. One of the remaining ones, the inspector made up the text of the code he was charging under. I have the code book, and it's flat out perjury, swearing a false statement, and filing a fraudulent government document.
We'll bankrupt the county on this, because it will get exponentially more expensive for them when we appeal to circuit court.
We got too civilized. I'm ready to go back to territorial law. Then I could rent one of those black bears from the other thread and send him up the street after those fricking chipmunks. Anyone have a brush hog and want to go drunk driving through suburbia one night? I'll pay the bar tab.
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I saw a chipmunk run into a pipe in my yard, I ran over and stood the pipe up trapping it, Called my preschool son over to see it.
Picture this, I’m holding a pipe at about an 80* angle, my son is running towards me, and a chipmunk comes flying out of the end of the pipe and goes right over my sons head.
He says Wow! Do it again Dad!.
A couple months later at my son’s school the teacher pulls me aside and says Please tell me you don’t really have a cannon that shoots chipmunks!
I used to set a trap at the end of that pipe no bait, and I’d catch a chipmunk in about 20minutes.
Picture this, I’m holding a pipe at about an 80* angle, my son is running towards me, and a chipmunk comes flying out of the end of the pipe and goes right over my sons head.
He says Wow! Do it again Dad!
.A couple months later at my son’s school the teacher pulls me aside and says Please tell me you don’t really have a cannon that shoots chipmunks!
I used to set a trap at the end of that pipe no bait, and I’d catch a chipmunk in about 20minutes.
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Our county has no inspections for new homes, garages, ect.. No electrical, plumbing, nothing except septic. My brother built a new pole building garage in a northern county and had to have holes inspected before builders could set poles and trench inspected for electric to the garage. I'm not sure how we survive without all the governments help.
I don't do snakes of ANY kind... One time I was running service lines in a crawl space in a dental office and a snake crawled into my coveralls. I came scrambling out of the crawl space in my birthday suit and went back later to retrieve the coveralls...
contender
Ruger Guru
To; themousethatroared,, keep at it.
Document,, photograph, file for information using the freedom of information act. Build a factual case of evidence that they are violating anything & everything. Every little scrap of fact you can get. Bury them in the courts, and just use evidence,, not emotion. Emotion causes too many cases to be lost.
Then,, go very public. Find a news station that will broadcast the story. even if it's a little outside your local area. Use the internet,, FB, Twitter, "X" etc.
Take pictures of the witch #2's cameras pointing at your house. File a complaint of "invasion of privacy" against her. Study their property for any & all violations,, and file complaints against them. File complaints against any others in the neighborhood who are in violation,, just to prove to them that you are not out for revenge,, but that they are singling you out for enforcement while ignoring other violators. Claim "selected enforcement" & prejudice against you.
Publicity is what these "officials" HATE if it's not in their favor.
And my comment about using game cameras to capture pics & video of the mice, rats etc chewing up vehicles,, is valid. But you can place them away from anything that might be flammable or whatever. Most have a detection range of 40 ft or more. You can place several around a vehicle,, 10 ft away,, and see what's getting under & in the vehicles safely.
Document,, photograph, file for information using the freedom of information act. Build a factual case of evidence that they are violating anything & everything. Every little scrap of fact you can get. Bury them in the courts, and just use evidence,, not emotion. Emotion causes too many cases to be lost.
Then,, go very public. Find a news station that will broadcast the story. even if it's a little outside your local area. Use the internet,, FB, Twitter, "X" etc.
Take pictures of the witch #2's cameras pointing at your house. File a complaint of "invasion of privacy" against her. Study their property for any & all violations,, and file complaints against them. File complaints against any others in the neighborhood who are in violation,, just to prove to them that you are not out for revenge,, but that they are singling you out for enforcement while ignoring other violators. Claim "selected enforcement" & prejudice against you.
Publicity is what these "officials" HATE if it's not in their favor.
And my comment about using game cameras to capture pics & video of the mice, rats etc chewing up vehicles,, is valid. But you can place them away from anything that might be flammable or whatever. Most have a detection range of 40 ft or more. You can place several around a vehicle,, 10 ft away,, and see what's getting under & in the vehicles safely.
Need to get him chipped so we know who to bring him back to.
My uncle had a six foot wide roll-up door which led into his basement so he could store his ATV in a warm spot. He had field mice that also liked to spend their time in a warm spot. I used to help him set traps but he got tired of resetting the traps so we used a 20 gallon drum with some fish pellets covering the bottom (he had a stocked trout pond) and a ramp which ran up to the rim with a counterbalance with peanut butter on one end which would deposit the little thieves into the drum. Every few days he would collect them and toss them to his trout with some of the pellets and it was a feeding frenzy. Some of his larger trout were up to eight pounds. We could fly fish there but they all had to go back alive. They were his pets. If you wanted to keep fish to eat you had to go to his twin beaver ponds which had bluegills, crappie, and largemouth bass with a brown bullhead now and then. He had over 800 acres used just for hunting and fishing and built his retirement log cabin across a dirt road from the big piece on a separate 36 acre lot.
OP
The problem to a degree with that is there is pretty much an unlimited amount of mice out there... I learned this years ago at my in-laws mountain house. When ever they left they would put out poison to kill any mice... one time I went up in the attic space over the porch and discovered thousands of mice skeletons .... the mice were coming in from the woods to eat the poison.... once my wife and I took over the maintenance on the house we stopped the poison thing... had one mouse family in the house and they would go out at night usually around 11:00 to look for food in the wild and then come back in around 3:00 in the morning....
tabora
LCP II .22LR, 10/22, Mini-14
Captured chipmunk #2 that's been terrorizing the birds in the feeder. Going to join the other one in the town forest shortly.
The.Tumbleweed
Blackhawk
I don't scream when I see a snake. If it's a cottonmouth, it's gonna die. If it's a rattlesnake, it's gonna be lunch/dinner.
Rattlesnakes aren't much of a threat if you give them their space, but water moccasin/cottonmouth are aggressive bastards. I just draw, and fire. Snake/rat shot is your friend.
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Depends on the species of rattlesnake. We've got several out here that will match any other snake for aggressiveness. We've even got a little pygmy one here that is just plain onery.
The.Tumbleweed
Blackhawk
Same cure for the same disease. Aggressiveness will be rewarded with a head shot.
