To poison these bloody foxes??

[curiousgeorgie]

Everyday I wake up to rubbish all over my garden and driveway... Foxes shit on my decking and today my doormat!!!

The whole place stinks and it's getting ridiculous. They live in the bit behind my garden because our back neighbours have fenced off the weeds at the back of theirs...

My next door neighbours feed them. 3 times a day from a plate on their decking. Whole loaves of bread and pieces of meat and blocks of cheese...

I just want to get rid of them. Day one when we saw four baby foxes running around our garden we thought it was lovely, but now it's totally ridiculous. I have a 1 year old and a 3 year old and every morning I have to go out and clean and hose before my daughter can go out.

It must be okay to poison them or something right??

Of course you can shoot foxes in an urban area. How do you think pest control get rid of them?

Op this company might be able to help you, if they're anywhere near you.

Foxes are classes as vermin, by the way. Just because they look cute and cuddly doesn't mean they're not a pest to many. Would your conscience be clearer if, say, they looked like a cockroach? Presumeably you have no qualms in swatting a fly. What about if they looked like a great big fly?

What are they if not wildlife, ItsDinah?

Domestic animals?

Cattle?

Plastic bin bags are only part of the cause. Urban sprawl and the devastation of the species' natural environment is a far greater one, research tells us.

I'll ignore your foolish comment about "the right kind of dogs" etc etc. It doesn't warrant further acknowledgement.

OP soak Jeyes Fluid onto tea bags and put by your bins and near where you think they come in...I warn you it stinks but it worked on the rat who lived under my shed.
You have my sympathy cleaning up fox shit that is all thanks to your ndn would piss off any normal person.

@ D0oinMeCleanin

Don't you just!

Sorry should add they wont eat it but the smell makes them move house.
Also good next to composters etc

It would be idiotic to relocate an urban fox into the country. They're scavengers, not used to hunting and they'd be slap bang in a rural foxes territory and they'd probably just get killed by the local fox.

My DFil is a gamekeeper and has on occasion had to shoot foxes. He once came across a fox in broad daylight trekking across his field. It stopped when it saw him, and he was amazed to see that instead of running off it sat down and watched him. He presumed it was a relocated urban fox and wasn't afraid of people. He said it made a lovely clean shot.

Feral animals are domesticated animals that have escaped/been dumped/wandered off and are now living wild (or are descended from animals that were originally domestic). We have lots of feral cats and feral pigeons in this country, but our foxes (whether urban or rural) are wildlife.

'Vermin' has no official definition in UK law. It's just a word used by some people for any animals that get in the way (or are perceived to get in the way) of human activities. A couple of hundred years ago people would have described rare, protected species like polecats and red kites as 'vermin'.

Get these on the case georgie

I was going to come onto the thread to point out that's it's not illegal to kill foxes, as long as you shoot rather than poison them, however I see others have got there first. I'd guess that it's illegal to discharge a firearm in an urban environment though. I wonder if shooting with a crossbow would be any more legal?

Just wondering, not advocating, because as a matter of ecological common sense, killing wild animals you don't like is unlikely to be a lasting solution. You need to make the habitat unattractive, or they will simply be replaced with incomers. Maybe one measure (among many) would be for the neighbours that feed them to be given an ASBO.

This article suggests a motion-activated water jet is one of the better measures.

www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/battle-with-urban-fox-london

AFAIK UK law prevents the use of firearms in certain situations, Ilove. That includes near roads - e.g. urban areas such as the OP's might reasonably be presumed to be.

The police forces in different areas take varying approaches on whether the fox is "vermin" for the purpose of gun licensing too despite DEFRA's classification.

Chelsey, yes, you've been rude. You've also been proven to be wrong and misquoted me and the OP but blundered on regardless without acknowledging that.

The comment about me being "a bit of an animal rights obsessive " is rude too. Can you really not see where you're being ill mannered at all?

Some very odd views on the thread

OP, call your local council, and report the neighbours for creating a nuisance. People have been stopped from feeding animals, and creating a problem for their neighbours; hopefully your council will be able to help. A simple letter might do the trick. The foxes won't stay if there's no food source.

FraidyCat it's illegal to hunt with a crossbow (or any other sort, compound, recurve etc.,) in the UK, and I would assume that extends to pest control as well, although could be wrong!

I wouldn't recommend anyone who wasn't a very, very good shot to take aim at a living thing though, regardless of what they were using.

OP soak Jeyes Fluid onto tea bags and put by your bins and near where you think they come in..

Don't do that! Jeyes Fluid is attractive to cats which will in turn lick the fluid and it's extremely toxic for cats.

I feel for you, OP.

We're in South London and nothing deters them.
The garden is surrounded by a high fence - over7 ft - they either burrow under it or leap up it - knocking it over. On one side we've relaxed it twice in six years.
Prickly bushes they dig up - along with everything else.
One of them came into the kitchen last summer when we were upstairs - and crapped. First I knew of it was two terrified cats.
It's interesting reading some of the responses on this thread. I think urban foxes are quite different in behaviour to their wild counterparts.

Replaced the fence. 'Phone.

YoureNotCutOutForHumanityAreYo pest controllers must have a special license or something because I can assure you they do use firearms in urban areas. I'm sure I've seen somewhere that they have a silencer or something to keep the noise down.

Also, my autocorrect for some reason doesn't like the word pest now and changed it to pear. Vermin fruit control.

Fucking pears are always going through my bins

They're a fucking nuisance aren't they?

Especially when they're cutted up.

Tell your neighbours your going to have to get a pest controller out to trap and destroy them because of the problems. Perfectly legal (in fact depending where in Surrey you are my DP can do it!) and might deter them from feeding them.

Only problem with trapping them and removing is if the area is still desirable (for a den or food or whatever) you'll get new ones move in so it's best to combine it with fox proofing

how about starting up a fox hunt and have them go through your garden?

And for those suggesting trapping and releasing this can actually be considered a breach of the animal welfare act

icclemuchy - I'm in Epsom... Is that an area he covers?

Ooh maybe he'll do the rats for you too.