wildlife / arbor ?

[treeman82]

Brian, I really know nothing about guns other than they kill. However are those silencers on the ends of a couple of those guns?

I talked with 2 friends today asking their advice. 1 suggested that I spray ether in the hole to knock the suckers out, and then either reach in there with a gloved hand and pull them out, or just seal them in there with the foam. The other friend suggested that I not only use foam to fill in the hole, but also a couple small pieces of firewood so that they can't just eat through the foam.

I just recieved an e-mail from my client and this is what he said:
"I'll get the squirrels out with an air compressor, or
baseball
bat." I of course meaning the client.

 

[BrianCooke]

Some folks call them pickels.

I'd stay away from any kind of one-on-one contact with any squirrel, you just never know where that could lead or what could happen.

We had (what I thought were) bats in our chimney growing up. I was maybe 15 and my folks went away for the weekend. I was determined to doa good thing and rid our house of these pests. you could here them 'chirping' all the time and it was quite annowing. So with my parents being away, I enlisted the help of a ladder, firecrackers and a tennis racket. I stood on top of the chimney with firecracksers & lighter in hand. I'd light some firecrackers, drop them in the chimney and then get ready with a serious backhand stance.

I ended up swatting two but was later saddened to find out that they were some kind of bird, swallows maybe? The good news is that they have not been back since.

Moral of the story, not really sure, just a good story.

Anyways, good luck with which ever approach you take,
Brian

 

[Tim Gardner]

A Big Shot and a few bean bags might work, fun too.

One made a nest in the eaves of my place this year. I waited them out and patched the holes. My ladder did not reach to the ridge since it was two stories. I had to tie a rope to a tree, cross the roof and hang off the side on a figure 8 but it was fun.

 

[monkeypuzzle]

Take a lot of hot peppers,jalapenos,habonaros and crush into a bowl, don't get it in your eyes mix with water and splash this into the hole, they hate it. Super blaster water gun could work, bait them out with some scatch feed,corn,sunflowerseeds,trap them, then turn them loose down the road.


Pepper spray might be easier to use up a tree.


Take the biggest rubber snake you can find and place near their entrance,,,,big owl decoy might scare them away.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Sorry Bob, I don't drink enough to make it worth while, besides I took a grayhound out of Chi once, too many weird people.

I'll wait for the video.

One thing I've heard about eating squirrill is that there is a spongiform enceophilits that people can get from them. Seems that in some southern states fried squirrril brain is like scrampled eggs in the morning. I got fed some fride sheep brain once, coulda sworn it was egg. Since I use a lot of hotsause, most people say I cant tell what I'm eating anyways.

I like Bob's tin sheet idea, but first punch some holes in it like an old pie vault. Giver the tree a little Americanna artsy look.

 

[Bob Wulkowicz]

Hoot, hoot. Better not shoot.

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[Heath]

fun problem.....

I would...
1. wait them out
2. try the pepper spray thing if you cant wait, but wear some serious face protection
3. put a plexi-glass top on that baby, pump in some food and water, add a little video camera and we've got ourselves a hip new reality-tv show!!!
4. split the exhorbitant amount of $$$ you ought to charge for this with whoever's idea you go with

 

[treeman82]

Heath, by exorbitant, what kind of figures do you think would be appropriate?

 

[treeguy347]

Matt, I've only had calls for animal remediation services from friends/relatives. I just charge them to give me something to drink, and cook me up a dinner while i sit in their yard and enjoy my target practice I don't know how good pepper spray would be, because when you spray them you'll probably have a couple seriously mad squirrels trying to get away from it. Have you ever seen one of those smoker cans beekeepers use to sedate the hive before going in? Filling the cavity with smoke should drive them out in a calmer manner, but don't set the tree on fire

 

[monkeypuzzle]

The pepper stew is to be splashed in, near, and just about everywhere the squirrels play,work, and eat.


Don't spray the squirrel direct, well, if you want to go ahead, it should set the little guys on fire


The "hot pepper stew" will hang around for a while. In the summer most squirrels build a nest in the canopy of the tree,the nest has a funny name(don't know it). Then head for the hollow trunk in winter months.


Your fighting with mother nature,give her a call.

 

[treeman82]

Alright, I am gonna head over there around 9:30 / 10:00 tomorow morning. Hopefully I will be out of there by lunch time or a little later. I will report back after the ordeal is over and done with.

 

[treeman82]

Well, it looks like the rain we have been recieving for the past MONTH did the evicting for me. I fired a couple of golf balls at the trunk with my Big Shot and they didn't come out. Climbed up there and the cavities were flooded. Either the suckers drowned, or they found a dryer place to live. I believe that I was able to set up, go up, fill the 3 cavities with 1 bottle of foam, spray paint the foam, and then come down in slightly over an hour.

The homeowner supplied the foam and spray paint. He also helped me with a few very minor things. After I came down I sat and talked with the guy and his wife for maybe 45 minutes? They also allowed me to use their slop sink. However my arms are covered with the dried foam, I may have to replace my hitch cord (no big deal) and I have to junk a canvas bag which I used to bring all the materials up with me because it is covered in the foam.

With that in mind, what do you guys think would be fair to charge? I think that to just charge for 1 hr is quite cheap. From the time I left my house, until the time I got home was 2 hrs.

 

[kf_tree]

how do you do a job with out first agreeing to a price? why do you keep setting yourself up to have problems? what did you tell the customer....i can pretty much guarantee you'll have problems collecting if you charge over a 100.00 since you let the customer help you, and then sat around bs ing for 45min like your time is not valuable. the job should be more like 300.00 for the time and gear you ruined.

coming up with a price after the fact always leads to problems. i don't mean to pick on you. but that's why i asked you about you price at the beginning of the thread, so you wouldn't be doing exactly what your doing now.

 

[rwilk]

I have to agree with KF. I feel you should always agree on a price before you start the first part of the job. I know here in Louisiana we are supposed to have a contract listing all the details of the job. I usually try to leave provisions for little extra, ex. if abc happens then x amount will be added. Even for friends this needs to be the case. You may charge them less, but they will always want extras done.

Good luck to getting you proper payment. And as long as you learned something, you didn't loose.

just a thought

rwilk

 

[treeman82]

Brian and Ken; if this had been a different customer I would definately have given a price before hand. However these people never argue with me about money, and they just said to do it. I told them today when I left that I will have to send them a bill for this because I have to figure out what the job is worth. They were fine with that. Had I had experience with this kind of work I would have given them a price. Also, we were expecting to find a family of squirrels up there, and they were gone due to the rain so that would have changed everything anyways.

Time for me to fly away now...

 

[Stumper]

82, I'm with the others on this-even after your explanation. I don't want anyone to thaionk I gouged them-especially a good non-quibbling customer! Set a price first. You can lower it but not raise it(unless the job description changes).If you are totally clueless about what to charge bid "time and materials".SET YOUR LABOUR RATE UP FRONT!!!!!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I usualy don't talk labor rates on T&M, I will give the "no more then" figure and then drop it down if I can do it faster. I will always pad that initial number so that there will be decent profit and room for recution if nothing untoward occures.

 

[Heath]

I do the same kind of hourly charging jobs, sounds like, 82. Add 20% to whatever you thought was "fair," that usually covers it for me, but I 'm broke so I dunno.

And while we are talking "Integrated Pest Management"........how does one go about convincing carpenter ants in a bur oak to reside elsewhere?

 

[monkeypuzzle]

There is a gel bait called Maxforce FC --- hands down the best roach killer on the planet, well here at my place anyway.

Three 2oz. tubes cost about 35$

These ants like sweets, they don't eat wood. The ants eat the gel, carry the gell inside the tree where other ants come in contact. Thus over time wiping the colony out.


I DO NOT know if it works on ants!!!!

 

[monkeypuzzle]

Screws up the nervous system I think.