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Getting Rid of Chipmunks that Damage Your Property-The Humorous Version
Most people think chipmunks are cute….me included. There's Chip and Dale and Alvin and his cohorts. While they look adorable, they are also rodents and can do expensive damage to your home and property.
I've lived in the country for almost 20 years and have always been comfortable watching chipmunks dart in and around my flower beds. They may have dug small holes near my plantings but since they never killed the plants, I let them be.
I have a large flagstone floor covering a walled-in garden area. The only problem I had ever had in the past with it was that the grout would crack in some places after a winter freeze. I would have those places patched in the spring, and it would be good to go again.
But this year everything changed. I started seeing piles of dirt that had been dug up in between the stones where some of the grout had loosened and popped out. Everyday new piles of dirt would appear. I had a landscaper come over to take a look. He tapped on the flagstones with a metal rod, and you could hear a hollow sound underneath many.
His conclusion was that the chipmunks were burrowing under there and advised that if I didn't do something soon to get rid of them that the entire floor of the garden would soon cave in. Not good! His suggestion was to live trap and release them elsewhere. More on that thought in a minute.
After investigating the internet thoroughly for methods of getting rid of chipmunks the only options I came up with were the following:
Internet Solution #1: Get a cat.
Problem: I live surrounded by woods with many birds. While cats will indeed rid your yard of some of the little rodents by catching and killing the ones above ground for you, they may also kill the birds that I want to keep. Not the best solution for me.
Internet Solution #2: Live traps
Problem: This is what the landscaper suggested. I watched an online video about mixing up all kinds of special pricey attractants and setting them in the exact right spot within the cage so that the chipmunks will trip the tray and close the trap….which they may not do if you don't situate everything absolutely correctly.
But with this method you have to buy traps which are costly. And the other half of this hilarious suggestion was that if you catch one…and one is all you can get into a trap at once…then they tell you to DRIVE AT LEAST 5 MILES AWAY AND RELEASE IT! Are they kidding?
Was this their scientific guess as to how far was too far for the critters to return to your yard? The cost of gas and the time involved in doing this was simply ridiculous to me in order to remove every chipmunk. And besides, what if they have GPS imbedded into their DNA? How do they know for sure that those same chipmunks won't be willing to make a little longer trek and find your yard again? And what an unneighborly thing to do to homeowners who live in your vicinity! What was the thinking behind that one? They're better in YOUR yard than mine?? Give me a break! Who are the morons that think these things up??
Internet Solution #3
Various ways to poison them was suggested next.
PROBLEM: It was stated that these may take a week to work. Talk about your long painful death! What if they burrowed under the flagstones to die and then stunk up my garden with their little graveyard underneath?
I didn't have a problem with having them killed (sorry PETA), but I didn't want them to have to suffer for an entire week to do so. That was just cruel and unusual punishment to me.
I finally gave up my online search and went to Home Depot. I'm standing in front of the rat poisons with a list of a few things I had written down as possibilities when a store employee walked up asking if he could help me.
"Do you carry something called liquid poison?" I asked. He said, "No. But I bet my ex-wife would like to get a hold of some of that."
We had a good laugh as he inquired as to what I wanted it for. I explained what the chipmunks were doing to my yard. And he said, "Do you have a 5-gallon pail?" I told him I did, and he suggested the following.
"Fill the pail about half full of water. Go to the local grocery store and buy some sunflower seeds. They're cheap. Float a few on the top of the water and put the pail next to a porch or someplace they can look down into. Chipmunks can't resist sunflower seeds. They'll dive in to get the seeds and drown."
Well, I figured that at least that would be a fast death. And it would be a cheap method if it worked.
Just then another man, who had been standing close by, came over and said that he had overheard us and asked if he might offer another variation of that plan. He said that his sister had used this method successfully and gotten 40 of them last year. I was impressed.
He said that she filled the bucket half full of water but laid a piece of Saran Wrap on top and put the seeds onto the plastic wrap instead of floating in the water. She did this he said because the seeds would eventually get water logged and sink. Made sense to me. He mentioned that she also used a board about 6" wide and placed it from the porch or wherever they were scampering across to the center of the bucket where they could look down into the center of the seeds and jump in. "You mean she makes them walk the plank first?" I asked. Another strange thought.
I thanked the gentlemen and stopped on my way home to purchase some sunflower seeds in the bird seed department. I was now ready to entice me some chipmunks.
Not knowing which of these methods would work best, I set up several buckets around the yard. Some had planks, some didn't. Some had Saran Wrap, some didn't. I could hardly wait to see the results.
When I excitedly checked my pails in the morning I was puzzled for a bit. The Saran Wrap was empty and all balled up on the ground outside the bucket, and all the sunflower seeds in the water were gone, too. What had happened?
In case you didn't know, chipmunks are active in the daytime only. They burrow each evening to keep away from the night time predators.
Then it dawned on me. I live in a woods. Other things besides chipmunks must like sunflower seeds. I figured out right away that the culprits had to be those night scavenging raccoons.
I remembered a time a few years ago when I had placed some peanuts inside a wire bird feeder, put a nail into a tree, and wound wire from the feeder around that nail to hold it securely. Under that feeder was my deck rail.
One night I heard a racket and turned on the outside lights to see what all the commotion was about. What I saw made me laugh. There were two raccoons sitting on the deck rail, one on each side of the bird feeder. And with their paws they were batting at the wire attached to the nail and were actually unwinding it from around the nail! When they were done, they proceeded to carry the bird feeder off into the woods. For being so smart, I figured they deserved it, and let them have it.
Remembering that little escapade from years back made it quite clear that raccoons were the ones who had not been foiled by my sunflower seeds on the Saran Wrap the night before. In fact, I had probably made it easier for them to get to the seeds.
I would have to set the seeds into the plastic wrap in the mornings and not leave them out past dusk. The second day when I checked the pail before dark there were two deceased chipmunks floating under the water. Did one dive in to save the other, I thought? No. The second one came along later and was just trying for the seeds himself. I must admit that I did feel a twinge of guilt. But when I thought of the thousands of dollars I would have had to pay for a new garden floor, my remorse lessened.
After several days of trial and error I gave up on the plank method. My board wasn't wide enough to make them feel secure enough I guess. I never got any chipmunks using that method. So I just placed the pail of water tight up against a low brick wall they always crawled along and added a few seeds along there to entice them into the water for more.
Instead of having to empty the bucket each night, if there were no chipmunks in the water, I came up with the brilliant idea of neatly folding up the four corners of the Saran Wrap with the seeds still inside and bringing it into the house.
When there were critters in the water I would just removed the Saran Wrap with a long handled fork and dump the animals and seeds down a hill that leads into the deep woods. Their bodies are so small that some other animal probably carries them off. Either way there has never been any odor.
When I told my son what I had been doing, he said, "Why don't you just put the lid on the pail at night instead of bringing the seeds and Saran Wrap inside each time?" Good point, I thought.
I found the lid in my barn and set it on top of the pail that evening. I didn't snap it down because I didn't want to break my fingernails trying to pry it off in the morning.
Can you guess what happened next? The raccoons somehow got the loose lid off, ate the seeds and left the Saran Wrap all balled up on the ground again. Grrrr!
That night, still thinking about my fingernails, I set a heavy rock on top of the lid. So far so good. The raccoons haven't managed to move it off.
One other note I should make here. Don't fill the pail more than half full of water. Why? Because as I was sitting in a little alcove early one morning drinking my coffee in a spot where I wasn't seen by the chipmunk, it climbed onto the top edge of the pail and peered down into the bucket which was about ¾ full of water. With the toenails of his back feet he clung to the top ridge of the pail while he elongated his body and put his nose and front paws down into the water's edge as he grabbed some of the floating sunflower seeds and then scampered away. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! I had a hard time stifling my laughter.
I promptly got up and poured some water out. Later that day, I had a floater.
In two weeks time I have drowned eighteen chipmunks and one mouse. And the piles of dirt on my garden floor stopped appearing right after catching the first two. This method is working wonders.
Although I live next to an almost unending supply of chipmunks, my goal is to capture them before they have a chance to stake out the place and begin building condos.
PLEASE BEWARE! If you have small children in your home or nearby who may accidentally fall into a bucket of water head first and drown, this method should not be used.
SIDE NOTE: I live surrounded by woods, and no longer feed the birds. They have plenty of food even in winter around here. Feeding birds draws in rodents including rats into our cities and suburbs. Likewise, if you don't want chipmunks to start digging up your place, don't feed them peanuts or anything else. In Michigan we are no longer allowed to feed or bait deer either because the DNR thought it might be causing them to get a wasting disease. Let wild animals fend for themselves as they were born to do and remain wild.
About the Author
Linda Grunewald is an entrepreneur in a successful home-based business, the founder of a 100+ member flourishing women's social club, a mom, a friend, a humorist and into metaphysics. Linda is a positive, happy person who laughs easily and gets excited by the simple things in life. Visit http://TheFlipSideOfBroke.com
