On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:50:43 -0400, Peter wrote:

On 4/22/2012 8:30 AM, Dan Musicant wrote:
Used to be that access to the crawl space of the house was available to
all manner of animals. A few years ago I closed off all access but one,
put finely sifted dirt in front of the one remaining access, made sure
that no creature had traversed it for a few days and closed off the last
access. Done.

A few weeks ago I noticed that the covering for one access had come off,
so I put finely sifted dirt across the door jam and yep, foot prints.
Probably a cat, I think. I put a dish with ammonia in it and a rag
inside the door there, but the foot prints have reappeared a couple of
times.

How can I repell the animal? If I see no footprints for a couple of days
(3 preferred) I think I can deduce that there are not animals in there
and I can close the space again. I sure don't want to have to go in
there and remove a decomposing animal. Thanks for ideas/help.

Dan


Email: dmusicant at sonic dot net

Last time (6 years ago) we had critters burrowing under our house
(near-in suburbs, not a rural setting) it was a family of red foxes.
Mama, dad, and 3 cubs. Very adorable, but not wanted. Trappers didn't
believe us until they caught one. The others were trapped in succession
after a number of ammonia soaked rags were stuffed down the access hole.
We filled the burrow hole with concrete and covered the concrete with
top soil.

I would not want to hurt any cats, since cats are not varmin, but if
it's some sort of varmin, I dont just use ammonia, I mix bleach with it.
The vapors will drive out anything. I dont know if I'd do this for a
house, but I have used it on sheds and critters that tunnel under my
driveway. I have had something large digging under a shed, and I just
used the bleach and ammonia for the last 3 days. I had tried everything
else, even dumped in some used anti-freeze. Everytime I fill the hole,
it came right back. I think this will work. If not, I intend to put
some plastic tent stakes on each side of the two holes , put bare wires
in the shape of a grid, and connect them to an electric cattle fencer.
I know that will stop them. I zapped a coon once with the fencer and it
never came back.