TOM: Darlene in New York, with a question about repelling woodchucks, you’re next on The Money Pit. How can we help?
DARLENE: Hi. I seem to be having a problem with a woodchuck. It goes from my neighbor’s shed in the backyard to the – to across our yard, into the other yard.
TOM: OK. Mm-hmm.
DARLENE: And we’re getting all holes in our backyard. They’re destroying our yard.
TOM: Now, you’re sure they’re woodchucks and not moles?
DARLENE: No, they’re huge.
TOM: OK.
DARLENE: It’s a mother and maybe three babies.
TOM: Alright. Well, there’s a couple of things that you can do for repelling woodchucks. I mean one of them I’m not sure applies to you and that is just to make sure your yard is less attractive to woodchucks by removing any kinds of stumps or wood or brush piles. They do like to chew on wood to keep their teeth filed down. So if there’s some good stuff around your yard, they’re going to be gnawing at that.
The other thing that you can do for repelling woodchucks is something like hot-pepper spray. You know, if you have liquid-pepper spray or hot-pepper spray, you can spray it in the holes and they will not go in there. They do not like that. Or you can use one of their natural predators, which is fox or dog or raccoon. That’s available as a spray and it basically replicates their urine and kind of keeps them away.
And then on your plants, if you were to apply something like a Deer Off type of a spray, which basically sits on the leaves of the plants or the bushes – and if the woodchuck was to eat it, it has a really nasty taste to it and that keeps them away, as well. So there’s a couple of things that you can try without calling in a pro, to see if we can try to minimize the woodchuck visit to your backyard.
DARLENE: OK. So if I do use the hot-pepper spray then, I just spray it inside of the holes in our yard?
TOM: Yeah, in that area, right, to kind of discourage them from using them. And maybe they will not create anymore. That’s what we hope, alright?
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