A Quick Fix for an Annoying Neighbor

Be the change you want to see on your block

Welcome back to Geoff Rodkey’s Bad Advice! Today’s question comes from Dino, who’s got an issue with the guy next door:

“We live in a side by side duplex condo in a suburban town. Our neighbor likes to feed the birds on his back deck, which was fun when it attracted cardinals and blue jays, but now we're seeing rats, and lots of pigeons which are damaging the roof. My wife is very upset about it and has talked with him, to no avail. Got any bad advice?”

I sure do, Dino! In fact, I can solve your whole problem in three words:

Get a hawk.

Just look how these bad boys handle pigeons:

Pretty impressive, right? I shot that video down the street from my apartment a few years ago.

Now, a skeptic could point to the continued presence of pigeons and rats on my block as evidence that a solitary hawk is not an effective solution.

And they’d be right. One hawk probably won’t get the job done. To err on the side of caution, get yourself a full kettle. (Did you know a flock of hawks is called a kettle? I didn’t, either, until about five minutes ago.)

A reasonably sized kettle of between twenty and thirty mature hawks will absolutely solve the pigeon and rat problem in your duplex.

One minor caveat: the hawks will also hunt small dogs. But that’s an easy fix: just make sure everybody within a two-mile radius who owns a dog under thirty pounds puts one of those Mad-Max-looking anti-hawk vests on them every time they go for a walk.

Not just cute, but effective! Buy them here

I know it’s a little unwieldy. But it’s not forever. It’s just for the next twenty years, because that’s the average lifespan of a hawk.

Unless they reproduce. Which they probably will, because hawks have no natural predators. So if you don’t want their population to explode, you’ll need to import some raccoons to eat all of the hawk eggs before they hatch.

Hawks only lay eggs in the spring, so unless you can bring in the raccoons on a seasonal basis—which I wouldn’t recommend, because it’s a logistical nightmare—for most of the year, you’ll have to feed them other stuff to make sure they stick around.

And no matter what you feed them, they’re really going to go to town on your garbage cans. So you’ll need to buy lockable trash bins. As will everybody else within the same two-mile radius.

Bonus: these are bear proof, too. And reasonably priced

But don’t worry—you won’t have to send out a mass warning like you did with the dog vests. Once they’ve had their cans ransacked by trash pandas a couple of times, your neighbors will figure it out for themselves.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: but how will I control the raccoon population?

That’s also an easy fix. It’s bobcats.

One of nature’s cutest predators

The great thing about bobcats vis-a-vis suburban living is that they’re very shy. So they’ll stay out of sight, and they won’t cause any trouble as long as they’re able to hunt and kill about two pounds’ worth of fresh meat a day.

Which will probably include house cats. So you’re going to want to warn the neighbors again. Except more of them this time, because bobcats hunt in a seven-mile radius.

Once the bobcat community gets established, your neighborhood’s food chain should be self-sustaining. So at this point, you’re basically done.

Unless you start attracting unwanted attention from overzealous public officials with a bug up their ass about wildlife control. Which, let’s be honest, is probably going to happen, especially if you live in a blue state.

You don’t need to worry about federal authorities, because all of their agencies are currently being dismantled. But depending on your jurisdiction, state and local officials might really get up in your grill about the species importation.

This is the true menace to your duplex apartment: not pigeons or rats, but Deep State government thugs.

And that’s where the firearms come in. Hopefully, you already have some. Whether you do or not, you’ll need more. If we learned anything from the whole Bundy Ranch fiasco, it’s that the more guns you have, the less likely the government will be to boss you around.

But no man is an island, especially one who lives in a duplex. So if you’re truly serious about maintaining sovereignty over your domain, you’re going to have to form an alliance with your neighbor.

I realize that’s a little ironic, given where we started. And the initial outreach could be tricky, because he’ll probably be nursing some grievances about the hawks, raccoons, bobcats, pet casualties, etc.

Also, you should assume he’s as heavily armed as you will be at this point. So tread lightly. But once you’ve established your mutual defense pact and everybody’s clear on their responsibilities for maintaining a 24/7 security perimeter around the duplex, you can sit back and relax.

Problem solved! It’s literally that easy.

Thanks for your interest in my bad advice! And for anyone else who’s read this far: please submit a question! I can’t do this without you.

I mean, I could, by just making up the questions. But that’s a slippery slope, and I’d rather not go down it. So drop me a line! There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.