I had an ongoing battle with ground hogs when I was at my last shop. I rented out a couple bays to a friend that was in the landscaping business and sometimes he would bring in trash and junk from off jobs he did and piled it up in the back lot. I kept after him about this and then he would haul a few loads out to the dump but bring in 8 more. Then he finally quit paying rent and once I got on him about that he moved out in the dark of night with most of his good stuff and left this huge pile of trash that I had to deal with.
Well he must have brought in a few ground hogs and left them there too because it wasn't long after that, that I started seeing one or two every now and then then the pile wasn't big enough to hold them all so they started to dig under my buildings. One day I decided that he was not going to come back to clean up his mess so I started the long hard task of digging the stuff out by hand and loading it on my trailer to haul it off to the dump and before I was done I had spent 3 months and hauled 43 trailer loads to the dump.
One day after I had hauled a couple loads out of the pile I came around to the back where the pile of trash was and I noticed this huge pile of fresh dirt piled up next to one of the buildings and I thought the guy had come back and dumped a pile of dirt for me to move too. I went out and bought new locks for the gates so he couldn't get back in and I also called him to tell him if he ever came back I would have him arrested. He sent one of his buddies down to see me to find out what all the fuss was about and I told him other than the other pile of crap he left for me to deal with and this new pile of dirt everything was cool but just stay the heck out of there. Of-course he came back the next day to ask me, what dirt? The next day I went in and there was another huge pile of dirt piled up next to another building and I was:fiery: mad. When I went over to where the dirt was I then could see that it had been dragged out from under the floor of the building. Judging from the size of the pile I was expecting to come in one day and find the building half gone after it had fallen into a massive sink hole.
The trash pile was full of large broken pieces of concrete that I would drag over to cover up the holes but the next day they would just be another one next to that and I kept this up for a few weeks and as time went on the novelty of this man against beast project I had been working on faded away and I shifted gears and decided I would have to try more drastic measures. I couldn't shoot them because there was a school house right behind my place so I tried the old fire hose trick. I ran a hose down into one of the holes and let the water run for 6 hours. I don't know where all that water went but it didn't phase the hogs, in fact I think they got a kick out of it.
Next I tried the old exhaust pipe connected to a hose and into the hog hole trick and let my old chevy truck sit there and pump Exxon gas fumes into the hole for like a whole day....I let the truck sit there and run long enough to burn up up 16 gals of gas, don't ask me how I know It used 16 gals of gas, well I guess I could say a little about that part. I started the truck up that morning and then got busy and forgot about it and some time during the day the truck overheated and burned up the motor but not before it ran the whole tank dry and also burned up the fuel pump in that tank and the motor quit. When I went out to get in it to go home the motor was locked up tight and I had to call my wife to get her to come get me.
I tried smoke bombs, gofer killing gas bombs, I even dumped 5 gals of old stale gas I had pumped out of an old boat tank down into one of the holes and it seemed like everything I did they liked even more. Then I got the idea of pouring concrete into the holes to fill them in. After I closed one day I went up to lowes and bought 10 bags of 80lb ready mix and a small mixing pan. I mixed it up and poured it right down into each hole until it wouldn't take any more. 10 bags didn't fill but three of the holes but I figured if this worked I would get some more the next day and fill in the rest. The next day when I came in I eagerly went to the back to ponder my success but was shocked to see that every hole I had filled was cleaned out like nothing had ever happened. I put 5 bags in one of those holes and now it was all scattered out on top of this ever growing pile of dirt.
I don't get discouraged easily but this was starting to be a little old. I went back to the store, bought come more bags of concrete, a few more smoke bombs, a couple gals of muriatic acid, some rubber gloves, gargles, and a respirator. I was thinking that I would fill the holes in the morning when I got there so I could see what was going on while it was going on. I mixed up a soupy mix of concrete laced with acid and then threw in a couple smoke bombs, jammed several bricks into the hole and packed them in with a big heavy tamp bar, dumped in a cup or two of acid then fill the hole with concrete then covered this with a concrete block and put dirt on top of that. I was sure this would work so I figured the acid and the smoke bombs would keep them at bay until the concrete had a chance to set up so I went on with my normal duties. I got busy with customers but as soon as things calmed down I went out back to see how I had did just knowing I without a doubt I had been successful. As I rounder the corner what I saw shook me to the very core, there was two ground hogs sitting on top of the dirt pile chewing on poke berry branch. I chucked a big rock there way throwing my shoulder out and they casually ducked into the concrete encased hole carrying the poke weed with them. As I was standing there in pain and my brain about to explode I decided that I had had enough and I was not going to give up until one of us was gone. Well, I spent the next 6 or 8 months chasing these guys from one building to another and shortly after that I decided to close down my business.....oh, not because of the ground hogs, the economy had taken it's toll on everything related to business of any kind around here especially anything related to non essential things like toys an stuff. I tried everything I could and even stayed around a few weeks after I had moved out just so I could finally see success but it never came. I think I really put a hurt on a lot of those dirt digging concrete eating subterranean devils from down under but I'll have to admit I was no match for their enginuity and determination so my hats off to them. I pulled the plug and left them to their newly claimed domain with my head bowed down and my tail tucked between my legs as I departed the area in shame. I have to admit I did think about dumping in another 5 gallon pail of high test Exxon followed by a smoke bomb just to see what happened next but with the price of gas these days I couldn't see me keep throwing any more money down that rat hole.......but I was thinking about it.:fiery:
