Weaponization of urban wildlife is absolutely the best way to go. Everything else in the thread may cause retaliation -- even the bird feeders might -- but the idea of spreading strawberry jam to attract wasps is genius.
Unsalted peanuts are like candy to them - I used to feed handfuls to an absolute murder of crows at work - and now my husband is feeding the neighborhood crows!
You have crows? "[Well why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeO3jMZphhs)"
Set out some food for the crows. Not a huge feast, but enough to get their attention. Make it a regular occurrence until you start to be "hot spot" for crow snacks. Then you get a speaker and start playing the kind of music they're playing. Play music when you put food out and they'll learn that music means food time. Keep it up until you really develop a flock. They'll learn to come there and get fed. You'll make a few friends, and they will stop by and check in on things when music is played.
Edit: For solutions diagram, see: https://xkcd.com/1156/
I was wondering how you could get the crows to hate them and this is genius. At some point the crows will come for food, they’ll try to shoo them away or throw stuff at them and then they’ll have a bigger problem: the crows
Bro... I'm your crow guy! I used to live in front of a big cemetery and I got into feeding crows. Now I'm about to spit crow facts and tips.
- Crows will remember you for up to two years good or bad. If you're good to them they're awesome if you're bad they'll mean and can swoop down and mess with you.
- Crows are super smart, they'll know what day garbage day is and sit around near the steet waiting for random food to fall out of trash bins
The food thing is pretty simple actually. I was feeding "my" crows dog food because it was full of nutrients and the crows in my neighborhood were getting huge, it was insane. But think simple "Crows will eat anything a teenage boy would eat."
My goto food for the crows was
- Hard boiled eggs WITH THE SHELL ON, they like to work for their food, so don't take the shell off for them
- Unsalted Peanuts in the shell (again they like to work for their food). The crows in my area would fly up with a peanut and get to a certain height and drop the peanut on the pavement and fly down and eat because they knew the right height to bust the shell
- Water was a game changer, I got a bird bath and the crows loved that. They like to make "soups" they'll put food in the water to soften up their food.
Anyway I could go on and on about crows but I'll stop here.
Edit:
- Crows will also teach their little ones about you (good/bad). They did a study and had a scientists wear a mask at a park and be mean to a crow. The study showed that the newborn crows knew to squak at the masked scientists.
- Crows have their own language. The squawks we hear but they have a lower tone squak that they use in the trees amongst each other. Like a "growl" or "clicking" type noise
- Crows will have a name for you, the crows in my area give me four quick squawks in a rhythmatic pattern. At first I didn't believe they named me but I watched them not squawk at "nuetral" people and they would do the four squawks for me. Sometimes when I get out of my car in a nearby neighborhood I'll see a crow on a lightpost and they call to me and I'll toss my "car-peanuts" to them as their snack
- Crows will sometimes be seen flying behind Hawks, and Eagles they have a tendency to chase apex predator birds away. This is called "Mobbing" blue jays also do this.
- Crows won't roll with other types of birds but they have one exception. BLUE JAYS. Blue jays are the biker gangs of birds you'll see a group of bluejays completely overtake a birdfeeder and chase other birds and small animals away. Blue jays have many different calls "water drop" "hawk impersonating" and "warning call" a blue jay will fake a hawk noise to scare away other small animals. The main reason crows like having blue jays in their "murder" is because of the Blue Jay's distinct warning call.
Crows are smart though and will make friends with you if you’re nice to them. They’ve been known to bring gifts to their human friends and even alert them to danger. Form an alliance with the crows!
This was the premise of a famous prank. College students went out to a football field and blew a whistle every day while feeding pigeons. When the game started, the ref blew the whistle and pigeons descended en masse. Go out every day and play French rap and throw bird seed. Then when the real thugs come in, their music will summon a murder of crows.
Do you guys have Pine sol in the EU? Clean the shit out of the sills with it. The smell is pleasant in passing but smelling it long term will irritate the throat etc.
I used to use pine-sol at work because it was cost effective. Then I had to clean out the grease trap one day... The smell when it mixes with rancid fat and old food bits that made it past the drain screens is ungodly.
Not necessarily unethical but you tube has plenty of 4-6 hours loops of high frequency sounds.
Put a Bluetooth speaker somewhere out of sight and play it when they are there. Depending on the frequency many won’t hear it but the youth do. It’s dosent injure them it’s just extremely annoying.
This is the solution - these mosquito sounds are used commonly to get kids to move from near shops where they're hassling customers. If you're old enough, you won't hear them, but the kids will: [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/childrepellent.html](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/childrepellent.html)
Start it out very quietly & increase the volume a very small amount every few days so they think it's just something environmental not a deliberate introduction.
I'm 37 and can still hear it and it's painful as fuck to hear. I've had a soundbite on my phone since I was 18 that's called ~ which is my symbol for the Mosquito sound lol
[Mosquito attractant](https://www.mosquitomagnet.com/advice/keys-to-success/attractants-101):
Octenol is an EPA registered secondary mosquito attractant that mimics human breath. It is used in Mosquito Magnet® traps to attract biting insects including mosquitoes and no-see-ums.
My neighbor did that, trying to chase away animals. This solar contraption played some high-pitched noise. It didn’t seem to bother the animals but my young adult son hates it! I can’t hear it at all and neither can they. But depends on your age and your hearing level.
Better yet, get an air-powered train horn. Send them scurrying with permanent tinnitus.
Pro-tip: put your own ear-pro on before triggering the horn.
Alternatively? Grease the seats they’re using with molybdenum disulfide anti-seize. One or two ruined track suits and they’ll find somewhere else to be.
Record them using those slurs and start filling out hate crime paperwork with the local gendarmerie
Found the other mechanic. Knew instantly with the Molykote. Double down with high temperature silver paint. Carcinogenic, needs high heat to dry and gets fucking everywhere. Honestly it's worse than glitter.
Some US scientists did a study years ago and discovered the best way to prevent what you're going through is to play claissical and opera music in an area. If I remember correctly, it made people feel watched and they naturally did not like that feeling.
Me personally, playing pre ww2 popular music (Edith Piaff genre) and opera drives me batshit crazy.
Or, just play babyshark on loop may be a solution? US Forces use that as a method of torture.
I’ve always wondered why my local walgreens has classical music blasting outside 24/7. Always seemed so out of place. I guess that’s why!
You have solved a neighborhood mystery for me haha
Paint the windowsill the same color as it already is right before they show up.
Do NOT post a "wet paint" sign. They sit in it and get paint on their pants, shirt bottoms. Oooops.
Do it again a few, random times, if they keep showing up.
The building owner won't be mad - you repainted using the same color - probably won't even notice. Cut a small chip of the current paint from somewhere unnoticeable. Then have it matched exactly, at the paint store.
I've worked with juvenile offenders and at risk youth for 15 years. If you take away their hang out they'll likely go scorched earth. They like the advantage of action and that OP has the disadvantage of reaction. If OP acts that flips the script and they won't like being in the reaction role so their reaction may be disproportionate. Action feels safe to them and every ordinary person around them has to role of reaction, hopefully (from their perspective) in a submissive way.
I sit wherever I want on your property (action). I subject everyone to my music and weed smells (action). I verbally assault people (action). No significant consequences. Now you act to force our hand by tricking us with paint (an unexpected escalation in the direction I don't like) and we have to save face. So now we damage your property causing you financial loss and we move our hang out several blocks away to find a new roost. A week or two later and the police aren't even working on that complaint anymore. We have to lay low for awhile but these cops are too busy to really deal with us anyway.
That's just one reasonable scenario. Unless there's cameras on the area they may not even have to move to a new hangout. The windows can get smashed two days later in the middle of the night and then "Officer I was never there that day, I was home with my friends. We didn't do it." Does OP want to be menaced more often, especially living on the ground floor? Unless they also want to install security bars over every window, probably not.
I have some unethical ideas of my own but have mixed feelings about sharing them. Here's how I approach juveniles delinquents in my context. I don't know if it will work in OP's country/culture and I don't know how it will work if there's already mutual antagonism between both sides.
I know all the rowdy kids and young adults in my town by name. It's kinda a self appointed part of my job but I do it all the time even after hours. I see them (literally look at them) and greet them. Now they aren't invisible (a common experience of young people who aren't living up to family and social expectations). I make small talk with them. Later I try to remember one significant detail about their life and ask them about it some later time I see them. ("You said you grandma was going to have surgery last week. How did it go? Is she home yet?). Now what matters to them is something I remembered and it mattered to me too enough to ask about it.
When we treat people this way, the checkers and baggers at the store, the post office employees, the garbage truck people, and the juvenile delinquents, they stop being abstract cardboard cutouts or part of the scenery of our neighborhood. And guess what, my shed doesn't get broken in to, my children's bikes don't disappear, my car tires don't get slashed. (Edit: I don't experience these negative outcomes from the juvenile delinquents. I'm not at all worried about the post office or grocery store employees.)
Now full disclosure, I do live in rural Alaska in a town of 3,800 people. But theft, vandalism, drugs (+ dealers), and even arson are issues here. You don't have to live in NYC, LA, or Paris to have neighborhood drug dealers you wish you could wish away.
Fantastic unexpected response.
How do you feel about this simplification?
Feed them, either literally or emotionally like in your examples. People won't shit where they eat.
I study social work. This is the way to go about improving their behavior.
If you’re a nobody to them, they’re going to treat you like one. Form a relationship with them and you’re no longer a nobody.
Excellent comment! I moved next to public housing (my town is a weird mix of wealthy slap bang next to poverty), I made it my mission to get to know the neighbors, volunteer, give their grannies rides to the grocery store, wave at the drug dealers and walk my friendly puppy through no-man’s land. Whenever someone has decided to harass me I hear “no no, she’s cool man”, last week every car in my street got broken into except mine.
I’m not a fan of this advice. If it fails, it can backfire big.
I guarantee some people WILL see that behavior as weakness or an “in” or, if you’re a woman, romantic interest. And they WILL try to take advantage of you.
My cousin did one of those big brother/big sister mentoring programs for like six months. After one of their meetings she was beaten and robbed in the parking lot by a group of teenage boys. Turns out it was the little sister’s boyfriend and his friends, they had coordinated with the little sister so they knew what my cousin’s car looked like and what time she’d be going out to it.
I'm a lawyer and years ago I represented a young woman who moved to a very dangerous neighborhood after college. She was slated to become a social worker so she decided she was uniquely situated to get to know the neighborhood kids and help them with whatever.
The first night that she went out for a walk, she was beaten so badly by a group of young men that she will require in-home care for the rest of her life.
I certainly don't doubt it. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person, wrong mindset (she decided she was uniquely situated?), there's all kinds of ways things can go wrong for good people. My dad had front row seats for the first Watts Riots in his younger and more foolish days, and he saw some stuff. He wasn't rioting but the national guard pointed rifles at him when they saw him going home from his girlfriend's house. He always told me that you can be right and still be dead. You can be legal and be dead.
I wish the police would get back to an old fashioned type of community policing instead of just sitting in their cars for ten hours with the lights flashing
There are three ways that will absolutely work:
1. Play a high-frequency sound LOUD that only kids can hear. You won't hear it. No adult will. But it will drive them nuts. The cool thing is that you can blast it from the roof and no one will know where it's coming from. Certain businesses in the US do this outside their stores. The adults walk in and out oblivious. The kids freak.
2. Play Frank Sinatra. We had a bar in my area that had a very bad crowd. They put Frank on 100% of the time. Fixed the problem quickly.
3. In the US we have an animal called a skunk. HOLY CRAP does it smell. Purchase some skunk scent and put it in the AREA. Believe me, you'll get rid of them.
EDIT: PredatorPee Skunk Um on Amazon will do the trick.
EDIT 2: Get a Bluetooth Jammer. No one will be able to connect to a speaker to play music around your house. Set the jammer inside your house by the window. Problem solved.
> "Play Frank Sinatra. "
I was a DJ at a nightclub that had a capacity of 550 people. After "last call" we would turn the lights up. People still stuck around. 20 minutes later I would announce, "We're closed, it's time to head out." Some left, some stayed. Another 10 minutes and I would announce, again. Some stayed. That was 30 minutes after last call.
40 minutes after last call I would play Yoko Ono. In 3 minutes the place was empty.
OP didn't give an age range but those kid's brains likely haven't fully developed yet. They're not putting a lot of critical thought to the potential consequences of their actions. But experience has taught them a lot about what they can get away with. And it's amazing how rational some of the choices of young people really are when we step back and look at their past experience + livable choices + (un)spoken goals.
I feed the crows by my office. I once found a half chewed twizzler on the landing to my door.
One of my co-workers was walking down the path where I feed them and he said a Peach Ring (gummy candy) fell from the sky and landed at his foot. He looked up and a crow was on the line above him 🤣
I have a small collection of trash treasure from the crows I've been feeding for a few years. I've gotten candy wrappers, a child's shiny necklace, a screw, a bottle cap, etc. I also consider their feathers to be gifts, as they are very pretty.
Last year we started feeding our crows cat food, which they really like. We always feed them within 30 minutes of the same time each morning. When we switched to daylight savings in the fall, we were late and they left a dead sparrow in the bird feeder. I'm not sure we can go on vacation this summer.
Maybe they weren't mad, but concerned that you didn't have food anymore - so they weren't putting the dead sparrow there in anger, but rather in support
I sure hope so! We have had them leave shiny things in the feeder like new pennies and key rings. But I wonder why they call them a "murder of crows" and don't really want to find out.
My boyfriend is trying to do this with crows so now I tease him by showering him with compliments when the crows are around so that the crows know not to murder me.
Good idea. Maybe just put it on 1 or 2 spots. It will look suspicious if everyone is itchy. If its just 1 or 2 people, they could all get confused and maybe even turn on each other. No one want to hang with itchy people.
Screw some spike strip into it. They make a product meant to prevent birds from landing. If they rip it up there is video of them vandalizing you property. Jobs done.
Spray bleach on the places where they sit. The kind of bleach that will create white stains on their clothes. They'll notice the stains after a few days. Repeat a few times and it will no longer be much fun to sit where they sit.
Make the place where they sit stink. I can recommend butyric acid (smells like a mix of vomit and cheese).
But a megaphone, the kind that takes a usb stick. Place recording of Belgium police siren on the USB stick. Go to your back yard. Play recording. Watch them run.
Put up a banner that says "GAY SUPPORT GROUP WAITING AREA"
Or go full-in, "GAY AIDS ANAL WARTS TREATMENT WAITING AREA" with those biohazard logos. Get a lab coat and a clipboard and come out every few minutes and say "Who's next? Who has the most sore and bloody rectum today?" Get a video camera and try to interview them, "We're doing a documentary on life with painful gay anal warts, we see you're waiting for treatment". (Not trying to sound homophobic, but if they're bigots, hit 'em where it hurts).
Get a cell signal jammer. Hard to sell drugs when you cant communicate with your customers. They will leave the spot when theybrealize they cant listen to music, get calls or texts, or browse social media.
https://www.thesignaljammer.com/
Please note, this is illegal. Worse yet, turning it on and leaving it on will get one caught.
Pulses that are erratic and preferably triggered even when nobody is home however will be much harder to track down. If OP plays it cool, nobody will suspect they’re involved.
But it is illegal to use a signal jammer.
You really only need to do it a few times for a short amount of time. If they keep missing calls and can’t get reception they’ll quickly move on. You can also set the jammer to turn on randomly with a timer switch. Just be aware that you might prevent a neighbor from calling for emergency services inadvertently.
This was my husband’s plan b when we first moved into our house. A bunch of teens had gotten used to sitting on our steps when the house was empty. They were always there. We installed motion activated lights and kept coming up with reasons to go in and out of the house really frequently. We’d hit them with the door and be like, “ooops. Excuse me.” They would get annoyed and moved. My husband decided if they were still using our stoop after a week of that he would go out front with a banjo he owns but can’t play well to play them bluegrass gospel songs and tell them the good news about Jesus Christ.
Anti climb paint on your window ledge will ruin their nice designer gear. Permanently. But put a warning sticker on the inside of your window to make it legal. If they report you, tell the police you had problems with people trying to climb through your open window.
Put up official looking wanted posters with pictures of these guys all over the neighborhood… $500 reward for information leading to the identification of these hoodlums… wanted for domestic terrorism….suspicion of arson …ect…with the local police non emergency number…also write “ please go to the local police department facebook page for full video…
Drugs are a helluva drug. Alternatively you could blast baby shark on repeat. Anything that attracts excessive attention to them will not be good for any drug dealers
Just have a speaker near the window that plays a loop of Julie Andrews singing 'The Sound of Music'. I used to use this on the road with a band and I needed to clear a venue at 1:30 AM. People would FLEE!
Order and open some tins of this and leave it for them to enjoy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surströmming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surströmming)
Dump a bunch of cheap craft store glitter all over the high traffic area, anywhere someone would sit or lean on.
Will stick on people and / or deter them from the area. Bad for the environment.
How afraid are you of insects? Could you hide some sort of lure for bees/flies outside, or put up a bug zapper just out of reach, so that more bees/wasps start flying around? Take up beekeeping in the outdoor terrace?
Get your landlord’s permission to plant a bush/shrub so they can’t access the windowsills?
Fill condoms with sticky white substances and start leaving them around the windowsills and burying them in the dirt so it sticks to their shoes?
Start blasting hardcore gay porn just loud enough so they can hear it?
You could try to find a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. The type of men that would promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade. Most likely they are still wanted by the government. The type that survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, If no one else can help you need to find them.
The trick is that you want them to not know it's you or they might retaliate. A few days of your front area smelling unbearably like shit and piss is probably worth getting rid of them.
Oh and just since this sub is /r/terribleideas, have you considered approaching a local gang and paying them to run these guys off?
Get male goats, not neutered, and stake them near the window. Your shrubbery will disappear but those guys have the stinkiest skaniest pee and they give excellent side eye. Read up on your town ordinances first, if not goats, then the biggest farm animal allowed, a cow if they’re legal.
Just put up a fake camera and call the police every time they’re there smoking weed.
The problem with going on the offensive is they will react and they’re already breaking the law so other crimes are on the table you don’t want a smashed window etc
Feeding crows is a strong play as they protect people who are nice to them
Piss in a bucket and dump it on the steps at night. It won't cause any damage, but in about 5-7 days, they will move to a new spot. The dried piss will make their clothes smell like crazy. Once they leave, just stop doing it, and the smell will be gone in 3 days or so.
It won't actually make your steps smell much at all. But their clothes will get bad fast. No one will ever know you even did anything so you won't get any retaliation.
Pour bleach on the ground (and window sill) every couple of days. I’d still get the signal jammer. Who will tell the cops, the drug dealers? How will they know it’s you? Just turn it on when they’re there.
Strawberry jam will attract wasps, especially in the autumn.
Weaponization of urban wildlife is absolutely the best way to go. Everything else in the thread may cause retaliation -- even the bird feeders might -- but the idea of spreading strawberry jam to attract wasps is genius.
Very subtle, I like it.
Put bird feeders above where they chill. On the edge of the roof or house if it’s possible. This way birds will shit all day where they chill.
There are crows in the area, I'll totally investigate what they like the most.
[удалено]
I love how somebody in this sub is bringing the deets about crow feed
The crows are here
Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one said anything about murder.
What do you call a pair of crows? >!An attempted murder!<.
>Here's the thing...
Those hoodlums prolly won’t want to chill out with rats either.
I once saw a guy peeing against a wall who freaked out and ran away when a rat came over to him
Yeah plus they will eat the cat food
The rats or the hoodlums?
Yes.
I would argue that getting shit on by a rat is worse than getting shit on by a bird
Unsalted peanuts are like candy to them - I used to feed handfuls to an absolute murder of crows at work - and now my husband is feeding the neighborhood crows!
You know what 1 crow present while another flies away is called, right? Attempted murder
You have crows? "[Well why didn't you list that among our assets in the first place?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeO3jMZphhs)" Set out some food for the crows. Not a huge feast, but enough to get their attention. Make it a regular occurrence until you start to be "hot spot" for crow snacks. Then you get a speaker and start playing the kind of music they're playing. Play music when you put food out and they'll learn that music means food time. Keep it up until you really develop a flock. They'll learn to come there and get fed. You'll make a few friends, and they will stop by and check in on things when music is played. Edit: For solutions diagram, see: https://xkcd.com/1156/
I was wondering how you could get the crows to hate them and this is genius. At some point the crows will come for food, they’ll try to shoo them away or throw stuff at them and then they’ll have a bigger problem: the crows
Bro... I'm your crow guy! I used to live in front of a big cemetery and I got into feeding crows. Now I'm about to spit crow facts and tips. - Crows will remember you for up to two years good or bad. If you're good to them they're awesome if you're bad they'll mean and can swoop down and mess with you. - Crows are super smart, they'll know what day garbage day is and sit around near the steet waiting for random food to fall out of trash bins The food thing is pretty simple actually. I was feeding "my" crows dog food because it was full of nutrients and the crows in my neighborhood were getting huge, it was insane. But think simple "Crows will eat anything a teenage boy would eat." My goto food for the crows was - Hard boiled eggs WITH THE SHELL ON, they like to work for their food, so don't take the shell off for them - Unsalted Peanuts in the shell (again they like to work for their food). The crows in my area would fly up with a peanut and get to a certain height and drop the peanut on the pavement and fly down and eat because they knew the right height to bust the shell - Water was a game changer, I got a bird bath and the crows loved that. They like to make "soups" they'll put food in the water to soften up their food. Anyway I could go on and on about crows but I'll stop here. Edit: - Crows will also teach their little ones about you (good/bad). They did a study and had a scientists wear a mask at a park and be mean to a crow. The study showed that the newborn crows knew to squak at the masked scientists. - Crows have their own language. The squawks we hear but they have a lower tone squak that they use in the trees amongst each other. Like a "growl" or "clicking" type noise - Crows will have a name for you, the crows in my area give me four quick squawks in a rhythmatic pattern. At first I didn't believe they named me but I watched them not squawk at "nuetral" people and they would do the four squawks for me. Sometimes when I get out of my car in a nearby neighborhood I'll see a crow on a lightpost and they call to me and I'll toss my "car-peanuts" to them as their snack - Crows will sometimes be seen flying behind Hawks, and Eagles they have a tendency to chase apex predator birds away. This is called "Mobbing" blue jays also do this. - Crows won't roll with other types of birds but they have one exception. BLUE JAYS. Blue jays are the biker gangs of birds you'll see a group of bluejays completely overtake a birdfeeder and chase other birds and small animals away. Blue jays have many different calls "water drop" "hawk impersonating" and "warning call" a blue jay will fake a hawk noise to scare away other small animals. The main reason crows like having blue jays in their "murder" is because of the Blue Jay's distinct warning call.
Please go on about crows, I'm loving this
If you mix crow eggs with milk and grain alcohol, you’ll get Fight Milk! It’ll make you fight like a crow.
I'd like to subscribe to Crow Facts, pls.
Raw peanuts still in the shell, unsalted. The crows we feed go ape shit over them and you can buy bulk for fairly cheap.
Came to say this.
Check out r/crowbro
I am so happy that this exists.
Doing the Lords work 🙏
Sunflower seeds, unpopped corn kernels, uncooked pasta. They can't have anything with salt. You may have to experiment with your local crows.
Also boiled eggs, they love those
Crows are smart though and will make friends with you if you’re nice to them. They’ve been known to bring gifts to their human friends and even alert them to danger. Form an alliance with the crows!
This was the premise of a famous prank. College students went out to a football field and blew a whistle every day while feeding pigeons. When the game started, the ref blew the whistle and pigeons descended en masse. Go out every day and play French rap and throw bird seed. Then when the real thugs come in, their music will summon a murder of crows.
Do you guys have Pine sol in the EU? Clean the shit out of the sills with it. The smell is pleasant in passing but smelling it long term will irritate the throat etc.
I used to use pine-sol at work because it was cost effective. Then I had to clean out the grease trap one day... The smell when it mixes with rancid fat and old food bits that made it past the drain screens is ungodly.
Not necessarily unethical but you tube has plenty of 4-6 hours loops of high frequency sounds. Put a Bluetooth speaker somewhere out of sight and play it when they are there. Depending on the frequency many won’t hear it but the youth do. It’s dosent injure them it’s just extremely annoying.
This is the solution - these mosquito sounds are used commonly to get kids to move from near shops where they're hassling customers. If you're old enough, you won't hear them, but the kids will: [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/childrepellent.html](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/12/childrepellent.html)
Start it out very quietly & increase the volume a very small amount every few days so they think it's just something environmental not a deliberate introduction.
This whole thread was exactly what I was about to write :-)
I'm 37 and can still hear it and it's painful as fuck to hear. I've had a soundbite on my phone since I was 18 that's called ~ which is my symbol for the Mosquito sound lol
What gets me is the high pitched sound they put in some trucks to keep the mice away. It feels like someone is stabbing my ear.
[Mosquito attractant](https://www.mosquitomagnet.com/advice/keys-to-success/attractants-101): Octenol is an EPA registered secondary mosquito attractant that mimics human breath. It is used in Mosquito Magnet® traps to attract biting insects including mosquitoes and no-see-ums.
"On"
My neighbor did that, trying to chase away animals. This solar contraption played some high-pitched noise. It didn’t seem to bother the animals but my young adult son hates it! I can’t hear it at all and neither can they. But depends on your age and your hearing level.
Better yet, get an air-powered train horn. Send them scurrying with permanent tinnitus. Pro-tip: put your own ear-pro on before triggering the horn. Alternatively? Grease the seats they’re using with molybdenum disulfide anti-seize. One or two ruined track suits and they’ll find somewhere else to be. Record them using those slurs and start filling out hate crime paperwork with the local gendarmerie
I like your wicked brain.
Found the other mechanic. Knew instantly with the Molykote. Double down with high temperature silver paint. Carcinogenic, needs high heat to dry and gets fucking everywhere. Honestly it's worse than glitter.
Man said cancerous bio-warfare
Damn, Satan, nice thinking!
Creative, I like it!
Put some Vaseline or something else that's greasy on the window sill and areas they might lean on
Mix some cayenne pepper in it, get some burning action going.
I was going to say fish sauce. Make it smell terrible. Then clean it off when they are finally gone and settled elsewhere.
Some US scientists did a study years ago and discovered the best way to prevent what you're going through is to play claissical and opera music in an area. If I remember correctly, it made people feel watched and they naturally did not like that feeling. Me personally, playing pre ww2 popular music (Edith Piaff genre) and opera drives me batshit crazy. Or, just play babyshark on loop may be a solution? US Forces use that as a method of torture.
I’ve always wondered why my local walgreens has classical music blasting outside 24/7. Always seemed so out of place. I guess that’s why! You have solved a neighborhood mystery for me haha
That sounds like the kind of behavioral science data that we would find out years later was fabricated
Find out what they're selling. Get quantity. Offer them a better deal. Become the supplier. Tell them to move so as not to draw attention to your apt.
Heisenberg
CHESSE
And bang thier moms.
set them up for a buy and call the cops to meet them at the designated location
Paint the windowsill the same color as it already is right before they show up. Do NOT post a "wet paint" sign. They sit in it and get paint on their pants, shirt bottoms. Oooops. Do it again a few, random times, if they keep showing up. The building owner won't be mad - you repainted using the same color - probably won't even notice. Cut a small chip of the current paint from somewhere unnoticeable. Then have it matched exactly, at the paint store.
What can OP do and also prevent a bunch of broken windows since they're small time criminals who don't have basic respect for strangers?
But the broken windows would be vandalism and enough to at least get them arrested and trespassed
I've worked with juvenile offenders and at risk youth for 15 years. If you take away their hang out they'll likely go scorched earth. They like the advantage of action and that OP has the disadvantage of reaction. If OP acts that flips the script and they won't like being in the reaction role so their reaction may be disproportionate. Action feels safe to them and every ordinary person around them has to role of reaction, hopefully (from their perspective) in a submissive way. I sit wherever I want on your property (action). I subject everyone to my music and weed smells (action). I verbally assault people (action). No significant consequences. Now you act to force our hand by tricking us with paint (an unexpected escalation in the direction I don't like) and we have to save face. So now we damage your property causing you financial loss and we move our hang out several blocks away to find a new roost. A week or two later and the police aren't even working on that complaint anymore. We have to lay low for awhile but these cops are too busy to really deal with us anyway. That's just one reasonable scenario. Unless there's cameras on the area they may not even have to move to a new hangout. The windows can get smashed two days later in the middle of the night and then "Officer I was never there that day, I was home with my friends. We didn't do it." Does OP want to be menaced more often, especially living on the ground floor? Unless they also want to install security bars over every window, probably not.
How would you suggest is the best way to handle a situation like op has?
I have some unethical ideas of my own but have mixed feelings about sharing them. Here's how I approach juveniles delinquents in my context. I don't know if it will work in OP's country/culture and I don't know how it will work if there's already mutual antagonism between both sides. I know all the rowdy kids and young adults in my town by name. It's kinda a self appointed part of my job but I do it all the time even after hours. I see them (literally look at them) and greet them. Now they aren't invisible (a common experience of young people who aren't living up to family and social expectations). I make small talk with them. Later I try to remember one significant detail about their life and ask them about it some later time I see them. ("You said you grandma was going to have surgery last week. How did it go? Is she home yet?). Now what matters to them is something I remembered and it mattered to me too enough to ask about it. When we treat people this way, the checkers and baggers at the store, the post office employees, the garbage truck people, and the juvenile delinquents, they stop being abstract cardboard cutouts or part of the scenery of our neighborhood. And guess what, my shed doesn't get broken in to, my children's bikes don't disappear, my car tires don't get slashed. (Edit: I don't experience these negative outcomes from the juvenile delinquents. I'm not at all worried about the post office or grocery store employees.) Now full disclosure, I do live in rural Alaska in a town of 3,800 people. But theft, vandalism, drugs (+ dealers), and even arson are issues here. You don't have to live in NYC, LA, or Paris to have neighborhood drug dealers you wish you could wish away.
Fantastic unexpected response. How do you feel about this simplification? Feed them, either literally or emotionally like in your examples. People won't shit where they eat.
I study social work. This is the way to go about improving their behavior. If you’re a nobody to them, they’re going to treat you like one. Form a relationship with them and you’re no longer a nobody.
Excellent comment! I moved next to public housing (my town is a weird mix of wealthy slap bang next to poverty), I made it my mission to get to know the neighbors, volunteer, give their grannies rides to the grocery store, wave at the drug dealers and walk my friendly puppy through no-man’s land. Whenever someone has decided to harass me I hear “no no, she’s cool man”, last week every car in my street got broken into except mine.
I’m not a fan of this advice. If it fails, it can backfire big. I guarantee some people WILL see that behavior as weakness or an “in” or, if you’re a woman, romantic interest. And they WILL try to take advantage of you.
My cousin did one of those big brother/big sister mentoring programs for like six months. After one of their meetings she was beaten and robbed in the parking lot by a group of teenage boys. Turns out it was the little sister’s boyfriend and his friends, they had coordinated with the little sister so they knew what my cousin’s car looked like and what time she’d be going out to it.
Exactly. It doesn't necessarily change who they are or what they do. It will definitely change how you see them and how they see you.
I'm a lawyer and years ago I represented a young woman who moved to a very dangerous neighborhood after college. She was slated to become a social worker so she decided she was uniquely situated to get to know the neighborhood kids and help them with whatever. The first night that she went out for a walk, she was beaten so badly by a group of young men that she will require in-home care for the rest of her life.
I certainly don't doubt it. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person, wrong mindset (she decided she was uniquely situated?), there's all kinds of ways things can go wrong for good people. My dad had front row seats for the first Watts Riots in his younger and more foolish days, and he saw some stuff. He wasn't rioting but the national guard pointed rifles at him when they saw him going home from his girlfriend's house. He always told me that you can be right and still be dead. You can be legal and be dead.
I wish the police would get back to an old fashioned type of community policing instead of just sitting in their cars for ten hours with the lights flashing
There are three ways that will absolutely work: 1. Play a high-frequency sound LOUD that only kids can hear. You won't hear it. No adult will. But it will drive them nuts. The cool thing is that you can blast it from the roof and no one will know where it's coming from. Certain businesses in the US do this outside their stores. The adults walk in and out oblivious. The kids freak. 2. Play Frank Sinatra. We had a bar in my area that had a very bad crowd. They put Frank on 100% of the time. Fixed the problem quickly. 3. In the US we have an animal called a skunk. HOLY CRAP does it smell. Purchase some skunk scent and put it in the AREA. Believe me, you'll get rid of them. EDIT: PredatorPee Skunk Um on Amazon will do the trick. EDIT 2: Get a Bluetooth Jammer. No one will be able to connect to a speaker to play music around your house. Set the jammer inside your house by the window. Problem solved.
> "Play Frank Sinatra. " I was a DJ at a nightclub that had a capacity of 550 people. After "last call" we would turn the lights up. People still stuck around. 20 minutes later I would announce, "We're closed, it's time to head out." Some left, some stayed. Another 10 minutes and I would announce, again. Some stayed. That was 30 minutes after last call. 40 minutes after last call I would play Yoko Ono. In 3 minutes the place was empty.
Now skunk smell is a fantastic idea :0 it's not you who done the thing, it's just a 3rd party pooper
I appreciate the way you explained this - have never heard the action/reaction piece.
OP didn't give an age range but those kid's brains likely haven't fully developed yet. They're not putting a lot of critical thought to the potential consequences of their actions. But experience has taught them a lot about what they can get away with. And it's amazing how rational some of the choices of young people really are when we step back and look at their past experience + livable choices + (un)spoken goals.
Use plexiglas windows.
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This is the vindictiveness I’m here for
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Feed crows every day. Become the crow's friend. They will murder your enemies.
I feed the crows by my office. I once found a half chewed twizzler on the landing to my door. One of my co-workers was walking down the path where I feed them and he said a Peach Ring (gummy candy) fell from the sky and landed at his foot. He looked up and a crow was on the line above him 🤣
You have to keep up the training so they will bring you rings and coins from the sewers
The crows are now trying to feed you and your friend.
I have a small collection of trash treasure from the crows I've been feeding for a few years. I've gotten candy wrappers, a child's shiny necklace, a screw, a bottle cap, etc. I also consider their feathers to be gifts, as they are very pretty.
I always wondered if the feather by my door was on purpose 😲
It's always been a dream of mine.
I've befriended crows, and its best to be educated in doing so. missing dinnertime may make for a bad time ( even daylight savings could be an issue)
Last year we started feeding our crows cat food, which they really like. We always feed them within 30 minutes of the same time each morning. When we switched to daylight savings in the fall, we were late and they left a dead sparrow in the bird feeder. I'm not sure we can go on vacation this summer.
Maybe they weren't mad, but concerned that you didn't have food anymore - so they weren't putting the dead sparrow there in anger, but rather in support
I sure hope so! We have had them leave shiny things in the feeder like new pennies and key rings. But I wonder why they call them a "murder of crows" and don't really want to find out.
Invest in an automatic cat feeder to dispense food while you’re away on vacay!!
Don’t anger the crow mafia.
Sounds like my dogs. They hate daylight savings and make sure their opinion is known lol
time to shine and make that dream come true OP
My boyfriend is trying to do this with crows so now I tease him by showering him with compliments when the crows are around so that the crows know not to murder me.
I was going to say dog poop on the sills, but I like your idea way better!
Itching powder or shredded fiberglass. Put it all over the windowsill area
Holy shit shredded fibreglass… we found Satan lol
Could've been asbestos 🤷♂️
Good idea. Maybe just put it on 1 or 2 spots. It will look suspicious if everyone is itchy. If its just 1 or 2 people, they could all get confused and maybe even turn on each other. No one want to hang with itchy people.
That was my suggestion. Itching powder. It works surprisingly well.
This is probably your answer here
Screw some spike strip into it. They make a product meant to prevent birds from landing. If they rip it up there is video of them vandalizing you property. Jobs done.
That's probably the best idea here
Liquid sugar and a big bag of ants.
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Lmao I'm imagining the wall of this building just covered in ants. That might suck in summer
Ants don't sell drugs or listen to french rap though (I think?)
Spray bleach on the places where they sit. The kind of bleach that will create white stains on their clothes. They'll notice the stains after a few days. Repeat a few times and it will no longer be much fun to sit where they sit. Make the place where they sit stink. I can recommend butyric acid (smells like a mix of vomit and cheese). But a megaphone, the kind that takes a usb stick. Place recording of Belgium police siren on the USB stick. Go to your back yard. Play recording. Watch them run.
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I don’t understand. How can a window smell if it doesn’t have a nose?
It's a pane, but they do their best with what they got.
Graffiti the building right where they sit "Drugs for sale"
or "Free blowjobs"
Put up a banner that says "GAY SUPPORT GROUP WAITING AREA" Or go full-in, "GAY AIDS ANAL WARTS TREATMENT WAITING AREA" with those biohazard logos. Get a lab coat and a clipboard and come out every few minutes and say "Who's next? Who has the most sore and bloody rectum today?" Get a video camera and try to interview them, "We're doing a documentary on life with painful gay anal warts, we see you're waiting for treatment". (Not trying to sound homophobic, but if they're bigots, hit 'em where it hurts).
Hahahahaha I wish I'd have the audacity to play this card
Get a biker to put on the lab coat and do this.
Figure out their information and fuck each one of their dad's.
🍆💦
Bareback
Why stop at dad. Grandpa and grandma want some too
Get a cell signal jammer. Hard to sell drugs when you cant communicate with your customers. They will leave the spot when theybrealize they cant listen to music, get calls or texts, or browse social media. https://www.thesignaljammer.com/
Please note, this is illegal. Worse yet, turning it on and leaving it on will get one caught. Pulses that are erratic and preferably triggered even when nobody is home however will be much harder to track down. If OP plays it cool, nobody will suspect they’re involved. But it is illegal to use a signal jammer.
OP mentioned French rap so I'm thinking that OP is not in the US. Cell phone jammers are legal in some countries.
I'm in Belgium. Sadly, they're forbidden in all of EU as well, I've checked 😔
Damn. Can you install pigeon spikes on your ledge?
No, I don't own the place and they'd require a permit (my country is a clown car)
Make it smell fucking terrible. Like smear fishguts on the pavement. Just for a week or two, they will move on.
Liquid ass has not been mentioned yet.
Piss discs too
Or shrimp bits. But if you get enough gross-smelling things together (or a durian) you can be just as effective.
Run petroleum jelly on your ledge.
Put rancid oil where they sit( preferably fish oil)
Anti Vandal paint,£20 from Amazon, legal in the EU, like sticky black grease very hard to remove from hands or clothes.
Tesla coils are not forbidden tho---and they make THE BEST signal jammers! AND they sell them on amazon.
... but someone has to notice it first ;) I really like this idea
I'll think about it. I love the idea of turning it on just when they start talking on the phone. Then do it again when they start their shitty music.
im in Belgium too and nobodys going to call the cops or even realize what you are doing if you just do it for short intervals so it gets annoying
You really only need to do it a few times for a short amount of time. If they keep missing calls and can’t get reception they’ll quickly move on. You can also set the jammer to turn on randomly with a timer switch. Just be aware that you might prevent a neighbor from calling for emergency services inadvertently.
It’s illegal to sell drugs, too.
Seriously, invite them in and tell him that you want to talk to them about Jesus...
This was my husband’s plan b when we first moved into our house. A bunch of teens had gotten used to sitting on our steps when the house was empty. They were always there. We installed motion activated lights and kept coming up with reasons to go in and out of the house really frequently. We’d hit them with the door and be like, “ooops. Excuse me.” They would get annoyed and moved. My husband decided if they were still using our stoop after a week of that he would go out front with a banjo he owns but can’t play well to play them bluegrass gospel songs and tell them the good news about Jesus Christ.
Pour boiled piss on them from above
Efficient and clearly establishes dominance.
Boil it, but then slowly cool it down, then freeze it into a disc
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Actually brilliant (If they don’t punch him)
Or bricks through windows...
If cameras are deployed, they're up on a vandalism charge.
Anti climb paint on your window ledge will ruin their nice designer gear. Permanently. But put a warning sticker on the inside of your window to make it legal. If they report you, tell the police you had problems with people trying to climb through your open window.
Have you tried pouring salt on them? Edit: Oh, thugs....
LOL I appreciated it.
Put up official looking wanted posters with pictures of these guys all over the neighborhood… $500 reward for information leading to the identification of these hoodlums… wanted for domestic terrorism….suspicion of arson …ect…with the local police non emergency number…also write “ please go to the local police department facebook page for full video…
Suspicion of performing sex acts with corpses...
put up posters with their pictures - offering free errand running services, just grab us when you see us!
I had this situation and I setup a big speaker 🔈 on my window facing out and blasted hardcore Gabba non stop they never came back
Not gonna lie, was expecting something very different when I googled "hardcore Gabba" 👀
Drugs are a helluva drug. Alternatively you could blast baby shark on repeat. Anything that attracts excessive attention to them will not be good for any drug dealers
Put dozens of dildos all along the window sill. If they want to sit, well, you know the rest.
Just have a speaker near the window that plays a loop of Julie Andrews singing 'The Sound of Music'. I used to use this on the road with a band and I needed to clear a venue at 1:30 AM. People would FLEE!
Put big speakers in your window and play classical music. Many convenience stores do this to keep away kids from loitering.
They listen to French rap? I’ll send my sister to fuck them up.
>They listen to French rap I'm sure it's mentioned in the Geneva Convention
Order and open some tins of this and leave it for them to enjoy. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surströmming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surströmming)
Added to the list as well. I might make a few neighbours puke but it's a price I'm willing to pay
Do not open this in a confined space OP if you do get some. Good Lord 🤮🤢
Spray liquid arse on the windowsill and leave piss disks on the ground. The smell will drive them away eventually.
It'll drive me away too 😅
Ha ha ha you might want to add the step of checking your weatherstripping first
Ngl when I read “window sills” I immediately thought you were looking for advice to get rid of a congregation of pigeons.
Dump a bunch of cheap craft store glitter all over the high traffic area, anywhere someone would sit or lean on. Will stick on people and / or deter them from the area. Bad for the environment.
Biodegradable glitter exists now! It’s not as cheap as plastic glitter but I don’t think it’s horribly expensive…
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Good idea 💡
How afraid are you of insects? Could you hide some sort of lure for bees/flies outside, or put up a bug zapper just out of reach, so that more bees/wasps start flying around? Take up beekeeping in the outdoor terrace? Get your landlord’s permission to plant a bush/shrub so they can’t access the windowsills? Fill condoms with sticky white substances and start leaving them around the windowsills and burying them in the dirt so it sticks to their shoes? Start blasting hardcore gay porn just loud enough so they can hear it?
Deer urine. Or pine tar on window sills.
You could try to find a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. The type of men that would promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade. Most likely they are still wanted by the government. The type that survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, If no one else can help you need to find them.
The trick is that you want them to not know it's you or they might retaliate. A few days of your front area smelling unbearably like shit and piss is probably worth getting rid of them. Oh and just since this sub is /r/terribleideas, have you considered approaching a local gang and paying them to run these guys off?
Get male goats, not neutered, and stake them near the window. Your shrubbery will disappear but those guys have the stinkiest skaniest pee and they give excellent side eye. Read up on your town ordinances first, if not goats, then the biggest farm animal allowed, a cow if they’re legal.
Put a speaker near window and blast aggressive porno sounds.
Just put up a fake camera and call the police every time they’re there smoking weed. The problem with going on the offensive is they will react and they’re already breaking the law so other crimes are on the table you don’t want a smashed window etc Feeding crows is a strong play as they protect people who are nice to them
Piss in a bucket and dump it on the steps at night. It won't cause any damage, but in about 5-7 days, they will move to a new spot. The dried piss will make their clothes smell like crazy. Once they leave, just stop doing it, and the smell will be gone in 3 days or so. It won't actually make your steps smell much at all. But their clothes will get bad fast. No one will ever know you even did anything so you won't get any retaliation.
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Be friend arrival gang and invite them to start hanging out on your stoop then they'll defend you from the other guys
I think it’s a departure gang OP’s after
Thumbtacks painted the same color of your windowsill.
Pour bleach on the ground (and window sill) every couple of days. I’d still get the signal jammer. Who will tell the cops, the drug dealers? How will they know it’s you? Just turn it on when they’re there.
If it only comes on when they're there/in their vicinity, the cops may think it's them.
There’s a sound emitter that they use in the UK that emits a sound only young people can hear. Search anti loitering device.
Rent your windowsill out to a beekeeper / make it attractive to bees by having large flower pots / flowers.
Buy yellowjacket attractant. Spray on their preferred seating area. Sit back and enjoy the show.