I live in the city. I understand and accept the compromises that my choice entails. I know that in exchange for being able to walk and bike everywhere, I also have to accept the impact of being in close proximity to many other people, not all of whom I may agree with.
But, am I asking too much to want people to stop peeing on my yard?
Today, it was two fine upstanding young men who pulled their car over just for the privilege of pissing on the side of my garden. At 10am.
Last fall it was the gentleman walking along at night, dropping trou to pee on the bushes outside my kitchen window. Where I was sitting. With the window open.
Last summer it was multiple incidents of my spotting pairs of sneakers confidently walking into my fenced-in driveway, stopping, and whizzing past the front of my car. You know, where no one could see you, except for the person on the other side of the fence, the bottom of which is at eye level.
Hey dudes. A little tip. Just because you can’t see me, doesn’t mean I can’t see you.
PS. Hope you didn’t catch anything in the zipper when you took off running. I hear that hurts.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Pictures! We want pictures!
(That might help it stop…)
June 9th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Don’t need a photograph, just the camera flash will make them run. I had a couple one night stop outside in their VW Beetle to couple, some years ago. Turned on the outside light & they disappeared quick.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I used to have trouble with teenagers parking out front to smoke weed. Put up a very noticeable webcam and it stopped pretty fast. Never did hook the webcam up to anything.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Not recommending it or anything, but having their videos up on YouTube might make them among the more often viewed videos.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Here in the U-district, things have gotten a bit better on that front. Urination on the back fence has declined quite a bit since the nearby bar went out of business, and I haven’t crossed the street on the way home to avoid a guy defecating on the sidewalk in six months or so. Progress!
June 10th, 2009 at 2:45 am
Motion activated sprinkler system — I see a great need.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:13 am
You know those little air horns with the big noise they use at high school sports events? Keep one handy. Wait until offender is mid-micturition. Let rip with the horn. Enjoy the spectacle.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:51 am
I recall reading about somebody’s lawn being ripped up by foraging raccoons. I think this was from before the server switch to Discover. I hope that lawn is not the same one in question now.
If so, poor Raccoons.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Two words:
Super Soaker.
Alternatively: highrise.
June 10th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Suddenly the suburbs are sounding more pleasing.
And be careful, Julianne, making a stink about it is how traditions get started. So next time we’re in town, who wants to swing by said house and pee in the bushes?
Eric:
o_o
.
.
.
Srsly?
I am definitely sticking to my suburban hellhole. I was giving human beings way too much credit.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Spiv — In high school, I used to visit a friend in a rural county. We’d drive miles down country back roads at night to the farm that had posted a sign saying “Please don’t honk and wake the chickens”.
Which all the locals of course took as an invitation to go honk at the chickens.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:45 am
If this happened routinely at my place, I’d install a rather large spot light on the areas which seem to attract the most attention. I’d also hook the lights up to a motion detector.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Exactly what are you spreading on your gardens? Sounds like you’ve got yourself some pheromones that are particularly attractive to the young male human animal, and I do mean animal.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
We have a motion-activated high-pressure sprayer to scare the raccoons away from our little fish-pond. On a timer, so we’re not sprayed during the day. Scares the bejeezes out of you when it goes off, too. I think you’d get some good laughs out of it if you installed one.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Julianne, I’m surprised at you. Don’t you know it’s all society’s fault?
June 10th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
FYI….the pants thing is true. Oh so true.
June 11th, 2009 at 5:17 am
“Caution: Electric Fence”
June 11th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Gonna give a slightly ‘alternative’ response here — while i of course *fully* agree with all the above responses about the grossness of this, and how to prevent these miscreants from their micturational misdeeds, i *do* want to say that if some body has got to go #1 very very badly, i would much, much they rather do this on soil, than on concrete/asphalt. because humans evolved peeing on soil, and there must be something in there that neutralizes the ammonia smell, because it’s never a tenth as bad to walk by a dirt area that has been peed on, than a concrete one, which, when very urine-saturated, stinks to *high heaven*, as i’m certain all are aware (any biologists out there who know the ins and outs of this?).
Again — *not* an endorsement of people peeing in your yard, Julianne (hey you kids!!!, indeed!), but just a small point to those of the male gender (mostly) in their moments of desperate need, because i often feel this distinction is not made. that’s all!
June 12th, 2009 at 3:17 am
Second the electric fence idea- This problem is extremely amenable to high voltage.
Combine it with the webcam, and you (or rather, your offender) will be a youtube superstar.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Hey, pee adds valuable nitrogen to the soil!
June 12th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Keep a paintball gun by the window?
June 13th, 2009 at 10:38 am
In Roman days you’d be onto a winner there, as you could have made pots of money by putting out large barrels for these miscreants to use, and selling the produce to fullers for washing clothes (or was it making cloth or carding wool – not sure ?). As they said in those days pecunia non olet.
But I agree that’s not much consolation now, and if anything probably makes it even more irritating
June 15th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Off with their goolies. It’s the only language they understand.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
sounds like Korea, only here it’s all on concrete, telephone poles and light posts, car tires. I think they just follow the dogs.