22 June 2006

Risking arrest

Chipmunks are cute! Really, isn't this guy adorable?

Adorable, until you meet his 87 siblings and discover they're all living under your house. Then you start to think cuteness is more cute from a bit farther off. Someone told me to scatter mothballs around to ward them off but the exterminator said all that does is make your place smell funny and potentially poison children, pets, and your water supply. I keep hoping the hawks (yes, we have hawks) will notice the wealth of food and start hanging out here more often... but I think the chipmunks know about the hawks and have based their operations under the porch for a reason. After a bit of internet research involving exterminator sites, Cooperative Extension sites, and personal pages of others who have survived a chipmunk infestation, I've determined that the most effective way to get rid of chipmunks is to actually get rid of them. This means trap them and then either take them miles away to some other field or kill them. One website shows instructions for how to hook up an Electrocution Pad to your Have-a-heart trap - a rig that gave me a giggle. Why go to the trouble of using a Have-a-heart trap if you're going to fry the catch? So, this morning finds us with a small trap (sans electrocution set-up) in the front yard, baited with peanut butter. Considering the number of times the "peanut note" was sent home this year, I'm wondering if we're risking arrest having peanut butter in a cage trap on the front lawn. What if, rather than a small rodent, an allergic child is hypnotically drawn to the globby brown, peanutty goodness? If you hear sirens coming from our neck of the woods, send Epi-pens and bail.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Time to call out Wallace & Grommit!

Fraukow said...

there's an idea - got a big shop vac you can suck them all up then drive to a park and blow them all away. no worries about pbutter - just how to convince them to come near a loud vacuum.

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