the vermin is gone

If you read in my November 10th post here I had an unwelcome visitor in my front yard, i.e., a gopher. From this point on the said gopher will be called ‘vermin’ as gopher sounds too nice and cute for what this creature is.

WARNING: Before I continue I must warn you that there will be pictures at the end of this post that if you get squeamish over dead things you might not want to proceed past a certain point. I will put up another warning with plenty of notice.

Like I said in November I had an unwelcome visit from a vermin. I did not know what to do as everything I heard there isn’t much that will kill these ba@t#$d’s (excuse my French; I’ve never hated something so fiercely in my life). I didn’t know what I should do.

Besides the tell tale signs of mounds it was quite evident I had something lurking under the lawn as the neighborhood stray cat would come sit and listen to the noise the vermin were making and would pounce and attack. Bless the heart of this cat, so patient and diligent but to no avail.

One day as I was sitting at my kitchen table enjoying a caffe’ mocha I saw dirt fly up out of a mound. Not only that but the little vermin was also taunting me by actually coming out of the hole a bit so I could see it. I swear it looked me straight in the eye and snickered. The audacity!!

Well not to be out done by a 4-6” rodent I put on my shoes grabbed the shovel, gloves, plastic bag, and my camera (couldn’t miss an opportunity to capture this event) and went-a-huntin’. I took the garden hose rammed it down the freshly dug hole and turned the water on full blast and waited….

going huntin' tools: shovel, gloves, & hose

Since I knew these vermin feel vibration I had my shovel in hand standing by the flooding area and stood very still. I can’t even imagine what people thought as they drove by when they saw this middle aged women in her yard with a shovel in the attack mode standing as still as a statue. But I didn’t care. I was on a mission. There I stood staring at the ground waiting for a sign. Low and behold within a minute or two I saw a piece of grass twitch. Hmmm, very interesting, was my sight playing tricks on me?? Motionless I waited. Again more ground movement and then hello, a head poked out. I jumped into action and pushed the shovel behind the said vermin and scooped out a big chunk of dirt onto the lawn. Without going into gory details the vermin took its last breath.

After pictures were taken, dirt put back in place, and hose put away I somewhat remember doing a little happy dance in my front yard. I was so happy the vermin was dead. Life can now get back to normal, or so I thought.

And then there were two….

Little did I know as I was doing the happy dance there was a bigger wiser vermin under my lawn rolling around in all the tunnels it had made laughing its tail off… at me.

As the days passed after I extinguished the vermin I bragged how on my first attempt I had gotten rid of it to everyone I came across. I was so happy to be done with it. Then four days later it appeared, another mound. Words can’t express how I felt (well there are words but they are not nice ones), I couldn’t believe I had another vermin in my lawn.

Because I was so successful with my first attempt to eradicate the vermin I thought I could just go out and ‘flood & kill’. Well, not this time. Every time there was a new mound I’d go flood to no avail, it was becoming quite the ritual. I started leaving my shovel in the back yard and as stealth-like as possible walk from the back to the front trying to be oh so quiet.

the distruction

I put the garden hose into the mounds and turned on the water full blast and it would never come up to the top. That’s how extensive the vermin tunnels were in my lawn. I swear there was a man in China standing in his flooded basement complaining to his wife that he just could not figure out where the water was coming from.

Time after time I did this with no ‘dead’ outcome. I came to realize how lucky I was when I took care of the first vermin because this one was driving me crazy. I purchased mole bait online that a friend told me worked for their vermin problem – no luck. I’d bought some traps at the big box store that it looked like it would take Houdini to put together but I was afraid to try this.

One Saturday morning as again I was enjoying my hot cup of caffe’ mocha I was listening to a home improvement show on the radio and they mentioned this company (Gopher Gitters) that has products and along with onsite service to get rid of ones vermin. I didn’t wait to call.

so much damage for such a little rodent..

Six hours later Gordon was at my house to set traps; 3 days later he returned to remove traps and dead vermin; it has now been 3 days and no mounds in lawn. I’ve learned my lesson on doing the happy dance a little too prematurely but Gordon seems pretty confident that there isn’t any more.

Oh how I wish I would have heard about Gordon 3 months ago before my lawn looked like golfers had been hacking at it for years. But it is finished, finito, done. BUT, if I ever do get more of those nasty yard destroying vermin, I know who to call – Ghost Busters, I mean - Gopher Gitters.

Note: Gopher Gitters has not paid me to promote their company, they got rid of my vermin. THANK YOU GORDON!!

Vermin Facts I Learned From Gordon:
~Vermin don’t hang around together, mom kicks kids out relatively young, no waiting for their 18th birthday
~Vermin have a territory; they don’t like to live close to one another
~One vermin will produce 1-2 mounds every day or so

Now all I need to do is get a gardener to come repair my yard...

********** WARNING!! **********

IF YOU ARE SQUEMISH

DO

NOT

PROCEED.....

********************************

my torn up yard

vermin #1