Brooklyn's Most Ferocious Beast
NY Times essayist Donald G McNeil, Jr. claims that four years in Africa didn’t prepare him for the wilds of his Brooklyn backyard. At first, he watched helplessly as the neighborhood squirrels destroyed his flower bulbs, his herb garden, “a Venus fly trap in a tiny plastic pot,” and more: “In midwinter, I spotted a…
NY Times essayist Donald G McNeil, Jr. claims that four years in Africa didn’t prepare him for the wilds of his Brooklyn backyard. At first, he watched helplessly as the neighborhood squirrels destroyed his flower bulbs, his herb garden, “a Venus fly trap in a tiny plastic pot,” and more:
“In midwinter, I spotted a beautiful cardinal on our television cable and ran out to buy a bird feeder. Within an hour, a squirrel had shimmied headfirst down the rope, popped the latch and flipped the seed cake onto the ground, where it was disappearing under the onslaught like a World Food Program truck.”
When the squirrels messed with his bird feeder, he decided to fight back…
He would rap at the window to scare them, douse their nests with cayenne pepper, and even poured “blood meal,” (a fertilizer made of dried pig’s blood) into his garden, as recommended by the owner of the Gowanus Nursery. Nothing worked. He finally decided to buy a pellet gun, but when it came down to it, he couldn’t pull the trigger. Has anyone else had any luck ridding their yards of these pesky rodents?
In the Jungles of Brooklyn… [NY Times]
Top 10 Reasons Why All Squirrels Must Die [deadsquirrel.com]
Illustration by Tim Bower
Rabbit wire works better than chicken wire, but here’s some news: we discovered that the netting contractors use to shield scaffolding works too, and it’s easy to stake and reuse.
Rabbit wire has 1/2″ squares. Chicken wire has egg sized 2-3″ hexagonal shapes, plenty big enough for tulip bulbs to come out of.
The contractors netting has 1/2″ or smaller squares comes in big rolls (I got a roll of it a couple of years ago at Park Ave. Building Supplies, but maybe you want to try a little building site larceny – it wasn’t cheap. )
Bon chance
Okay here’s what works at ours….buy chicken wire at the local hardware store and place on top of planting area where you put in your flowering bulbs. You can use the metal stakes sold at HD to hold in place like you would for landscape fabric. And then cover with either just mulch or a combo of landscape fabric and mulch if you hate to weed as much as I do. And I was hating my squirrel insanity in my yard a lot this year UNTIL I realized that they were eating my other garden plague…the maple tree seeds, which are like 5million x’s worse than squirrels if you ask me. I hope the Japanese beetle wipes those stupid trees out asap!
NYC squirrels have nothing on the black squirrels in Washington DC. Those buggers will sit right next to you on a park bench and think nothing of it.
If I didn’t have my screen up, the Fire Escape Squirrel would climb up the fire escape and jump onto my table looking for food. I live in a studio so he’d wake me up in the morning.
Last year, a baby squirrel ran up a fire escape and didn’t know how to come down. It kept going up and up, screaming the whole time.
I and a stray cat looked up helplessly.
Squirrels are very territorial. Blind-Eye Squirrel I see once in a while, digging for nuts in front of my apartment building.
get a dog, they’ll never come around again, and you can take said dog to the slope to piss on that dood’s sign.
Seriously they act odd in the city cause they are so stressed. Cats, limited space to roam, bad diet ( yeah that messes them up too).
Understanding that you live in a city, also understand that animals do have habitats here. If it was a half in central park you’d all be giving money to preserve its nest and making fun of the upper East siders.
right!
How about a cat with a stong prey instinct?
Check out http://www.whatjeffkilled.com
I am having a similar problem with racoons. I live near greenwood cementary. All my neighbors are also complaining. Racoons are digging holes in the sod. getting into open windows. knocking down plants etc…some claim they are swimming in their pools.
animal control saids “your problem”. rent a trap and then drive 20+ miles and release them in the wild, or hire a trapper. I said how about “bob wire” they say about animal cruelty. I am running lights in the backyard over night. and I put a sign up no unauthorized use of the swimmming pool.
We had a squirrel break into our house a couple months ago via a hole it ripped in our kitchen window screen. It knocked over a bunch of plants, chewed on a foccacia, left a puddle of indeterminate brown liquid on our counter (yeah) and paw prints everywhere. We were amazed by this invasion – we didn’t even have any Honey Nut Clusters in the house.
Apparently he/they’ve been harassing our neighbors too. . .
my grandfather, who lived in a neighborhood full of bungalows and cape cods on quarter-acre lots, took it personal when the squirrels got into his garden. he used a sling-shot on them. (disclaimer: preceding information is provided as historical record and is not intended as a recommendation of any sort.)