With a slight variation, I am Carl Spackler. It appears that we have a groundhog living under the back porch. Bridget and I were talking and heard a rustling in the flowers. We turned and saw a groundhog emerge, stare at us, then dart under the porch. Mojo nearly freaked out. Bridget tried to pet him to tell him it was okay, but he nearly jumped off his perch. Now I’m researching ways to rid myself of this menace. He is surely the creature that wreaks havoc on our garbage. If the borough doesn’t provide traps for this sort of thing I’ll be finding other ways to get rid of it. I’m sure Ron can give me a few ideas.
My Uncle Joe has a tried and true gopher removal technique involving a smoke bomb and a baseball bat. However, I am not certain if PETA would approve.
Comment by R. Neck — 7/12/2005 @ 8:22 am
I’ve read a few sites that indicate similar solutions. The biggest problem with such a solution is that I don’t want to have that gas leaking up through the porch into our sunroom.
Comment by AxsDeny — 7/12/2005 @ 8:23 am
What about leading it to J-lo’s house with a trail of cookies…I think the naked kids need a pet…
Comment by Laura — 7/12/2005 @ 12:38 pm
There are traps you can get. The pronounciation is “conabear” type traps and they will.. “get it” when it leaves the hole. Smoke bombs could set fire to your house so I would recommend that. I think juniata trade sells them or used to.
Comment by Richard — 7/12/2005 @ 10:47 pm
There are a bunch of cats and dogs that belong to the neighbors that wander around here. I certainly don’t want to trap one of them in such a device. I’m thinking some sort of sealing cage like the humane mousetraps. That way I can be sure of what I have before anything gets killed or otherwise dealt with. I need to call the borough about all this anyway and see what my legal options are in this situation. I certainly don’t want to get in trouble— I do live next to the ex-chief of police, after all.
Comment by AxsDeny — 7/12/2005 @ 10:57 pm
If it is a hole in the ground you could still place that kind of trap, put a box over it to keep pets from messing with it and place a weight on the box. But if the township has the humane traps available use those- it’ll save everybody potential grief.
Also if it is just a hole you could pour water down it (the faster the better) to get the critter out, place a fishing net over the hole (first) to catch it when it comes out and plop it into a metal garbage can. If it is a little bit of digging that allows it to get underneath your porch, don’t bother with all that. Alot of this depends on how much time you have a how you want to go about it. Let me know how it all turns out. I would have fun solving this problem whatever the limitations (non-lethal means with a goal of relocating it or whatever)on what could be done. Have fun and outsmart the wascal.
Call the game commision and see if they will help you, they may take care of that thing, too. They would certainly be able to tell you where to look for the humane traps.
Comment by Richard — 7/13/2005 @ 4:04 am
Yeah, I’d like to not kill the local cats. I wish it was a hole in the ground but it’s just running under the back porch. Someone suggested locking it up under there, but it would just cause more damage trying to get out. I need to call the borough today anyway, so we’ll see what they have to say. I think trapping it alive is the best bet since I also don’t want a rotting carcass underneath the porch in 95° weather. Ick.
Comment by AxsDeny — 7/13/2005 @ 8:05 am
Yeah, that is probably the way to go. The humane box trap things. Post the results of the conflict between man vs. animal. I would like to know who if anyone is helpful or not helpful by providing the traps and whatever they do after that if you catch it. Do they have municipal dog catchers anymore?
Comment by Richard — 7/14/2005 @ 12:08 am