Steel Wool Rolls to Ratproof a Yard

If I remember correctly, the wire mesh is called “hardware cloth.”  It’s pretty tough stuff, and rodents can’t chew their way through it.

mab

in Pest Control 12 years and 9 months ago

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elbow | 12 years and 9 months ago

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I went past the African Burial Ground National Park today and saw that they had removed all the grass and covered the entire unpaved portion of the park with steel wool sheets.  It looks like they went down a couple of inches from the level of where finished ground used to be, so I’m assuming they will be replacing the grass that used to cover the unpaved area.  Also, from the plethora of rat traps that used to line the edge of the place, I’m assuming the steel wool is to keep rats at bay.  My question is how good of a long term stragegy is laying steel wool under sod?  Won’t it rust away in short order?  Maybe the next thing is a layer of heavy mil plastic….  Aslo, won’t the grass do poorly if the roots can’t go down more than the thickness of sod?  This project also seemed to include area drainage and interlocking plastic pieces where the stell wool meets the curb.  Curious to hear what folks think.

cate | 12 years and 9 months ago

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Interesting. We use plastic netting buried under the dirt under our raised beds to keep the burrowing pests from eating the vegetables in our garden, but steel wool sheets is a new concept to me. They’ll rust.

daveinbedstuy | 12 years and 9 months ago

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The way you typically keep rodents, rabbitts, etc out of gardens is to fence it in and bury a wire mesh fence about a foot or so into the ground around the fence.  Most varmits don’t burrow lower than that.  Plastic doesn’t work. they eat right through it.