I may attempt to murder a gopher ... I just might stoop to that level (so help me God)

[SteveB]

feet by 20 feet (roughly).

ONE, only ONE gopher can look like 20 sometimes, they create so much damage.

Steve

[Butch]

That would only drive the gophers out if they were gay.

[Stormin Mormon]

You think some straight gopher would put up with such a scheme?

[bob haller]

I tend to believe any unnecessary killing may effect us after we die. GOD may frown on murders rapists, and people who kill animals for the heck of it.....

[Danny D'Amico]

After about 4 hours under the hose, the water started seeping out of concrete cracks in the retaining walls, steps, and even the driveway below the lawn.

So, I think I pretty much flooded the gopher's caverns; however, I don't see what I did as being all that different than a good heavy California rainstorm.

I'll let you know if the 4-hour flood has made the gopher into a Noah, to pack up and leave for dry ground. Tomorrow I'll look for fresh mounds.

I'm hoping the water treatment worked. I'm amazed, even after four hours, no water showed up on top of the ground. It only seeped out below grade about 4 feet vertically below where I flooded and about ten or twenty feet away horizontally.

[Danny D'Amico]

It *is* amazing how many holes the thing pops up. Generally a few a day.

I flooded the holes for four hours, until the cracks in the driveway below seeped, and the steps seeped at the corners (although no water came to the surface where I was flooding).

At something like ten gallons a minute from two garden hoses, the ground soaked up something like 5,000 gallons of water in those four hours!

Now, it has only rained once in 8 months, so, I guess I'm doing the soil a favor; but I was shocked that the soil soaked all that up with just a bit of weeping at the cracks in the retaining walls, steps, and driveway a few vertical feet below in elevation.

Wow. The ground has as great a capacity for soaking up water as it does for electrons from the power company! :)

[gregz]

I don't killing for nothing, from an experience I once had.

But, I've had a couple annoying gophers over the years. I once had one under my shed floor. The floor was caving in. Brick over earth. I set up a horn speaker playing sound for a few days. Pretty loud close up, but not annoying around the house. After I saw it was clear, I blocked the entrance. Looked like he was trying to get back in. I added more rocks. Finally clear. I tried trapping the critter in safe trap. The only thing I caught were two raccoons and an opposum.

Couple summers ago, another one under another cement slab down the hill. Looked like he was going near garden. One day I took a 1000 watt generator, and fed gases into hole. Partially blocked hole. I don't know if I caused death. Never saw It again. No smells out of hole. CO seems humane.

Greg

[Danny D'Amico]

I try not to kill even the black widow spiders I catch almost weekly and baby rattlesnakes I catch ever few months.

I relocate them to a far corner of my property. These gophers, I'd relocate, if I could. I first tried noxious chemicals to try to French them out, but, so far, that hasn't worked.

Now I'm moving one notch up, by soaking them out. I have hilly property, so, on purpose, I chose a hole that was halfway on a hillside. There is about four feet above and below the hole that is soil (concrete being on both sides of that).

So, I'm hoping that the 5,000 gallons of water I just put into two of those holes will flush them out. They're welcome to find another spot to live, as I have plenty of non-grassy land further from the house.

Let's hope they got the hint, because I plan on giving them another 5,000 gallons of water (4 hours, 3/4" hose, 80psi) from the two hoses again tomorrow.

[nestork]

Yes, but killing a gopher because he's making a mess of your yard is not killing an animal for the heck of it.

I'm sure that if the OP could capture that gopher and relocate him, perhaps to his ex-wife's lawyer's yard, that would be his preference. And, if that were not practical, he could always release the gopher into the wild somewhere.

[SteveB]

Flooding will cause unseen damage, and settling. Maybe not now, but later. I have run water 24 hours, and not gotten the gopher. Then I thought, "I wonder where all that water went, and what damage it did. I gave up flooding forthwith.

Trap them. Consider it a challenge. I do. Every time there's a new hole, I keep after it until they are dead or gone. Word must be out in Gopherdom, as I have had gophers disappear, and they didn't get trapped in my traps. Just one day, no more holes, but nothing in my traps, either.

I consider it a personal challenge every time I get a gopher. And if you don't notice it until they have more than four piles of dirt, you aren't checking your property often enough.

Steve

[bob haller]

as a child i tried to flood chipmunks out. they dug drain holes so the water didnt effect them...

burrowing animals are excellent engineers

[Danny D'Amico]

Funny you should mention that because I stopped the garden hose after noticing that the cracks and joints in the concrete retaining walls and steps and even in the driveway were seeping water.

Then I thought about the house, which for one of the two garden hoses, was at the same level. That's when I stopped.

Still, I was amazed that ZERO water came to the surface, even after roughly 5,000 gallons was pumped into the ground. Wow. What a capacity to absorb water the dry soil has! (It has only rained once since about May of this year).

Maybe the time to flush them out is after the rains start?

[Danny D'Amico]

This, I don't doubt. Simply because I put 5,000 gallons into the soil (by my calculation) and absolutely none if it rose to the surface.

The ground absorbed (almost) all of it! (Cracks weeped in the concrete.)

Seems to me a good week of rain, which is what we get in California during the rainy season, would add to the soil far more water than I can flood into that gopher hole. Right?

And they live through that every year.

[SteveB]

Google St. Francis Dam collapse, California. It happened when the dirt in the dam became so saturated that it flowed like water, creating the new word, "liquefaction." You have created the same thing, only you have undermined your retaining walls, steps, and driveway putting air holes in there where you've washed away support dirt, or caused it to subside and drop. Look to see them start sinking, cracking, and otherwise rapidy deteriorating here shortly.

Steve

[Danny D'Amico]

I'll look, for sure.

But, there's no way I put more water in than that which is absorbed during a good week of rainy onslaught from the sky.

Still, maybe the rain doesn't soak as deeply as the water I put in via the tunnels?

[Todd]

Perfect.

Just cram some catshit down the hole. You must have a female neighbor who it single who would not mind you emptying her litter box down the hole! Cat pee works too, just down the litter box down their holes.

[Danny D'Amico]

(preliminary) LESSONS LEARNED:

1. My first lesson learned is that it's just not worth trying to irritate the mole out of the yard with noxious chemicals. Mainly, it doesn't work; and secondarily, it costs a gallon (or so) for the chemicals (when a reusable trap only costs ).
2. My second lesson learned is that flooding them with water isn't worth it either. Maybe it worked, maybe it didn't. I don't know yet. But, after flooding for two days at 2,500 gallons a hole, that's 10,000 gallons of water that started leaking out of my concrete anywhere it could leak out.
3. My third lesson learned is that I should have tramped down *all* the gopher holes *before* beginning the "treatment". I can't tell if the flooding worked or not. So, today I raked over all the mole hills, so I can tell if he's gone for good.
4. My fourth lesson seems to be that the cheapest effective way to get rid of the gopher will either be this rat poison or that Mcabee gopher trap!

[Danny D'Amico]

I'm giving up on the water flooding gopher solution method!

I don't know if it worked yet, but, after 10,000 gallons was poured into two gopher holes, I noticed *all* the concrete cracks weeping.

For example, here's a shot of the steps below the gopher hole:

And, here's a shot of the retaining wall at the bottom of the steps:

Seems to me the water might be damaging things, so, if it didn't already work on getting rid of my first couple of gophers, I'm giving up on it and moving on to something else!

[Danny D'Amico]

I couldn't find *that* gadget, but, I did find these gopher gassers today at the hardware store:

[Danny D'Amico]

Actually, you're right!

After 10,000 gallons of water, every crack was seeping.

Here's a shot of the water pouring out of the bottom of the retaining wall.

I give up on giving the gopher a bath method!