Burrowing Under Brick Paver Deck

[ajw22]

I was working around the pool cleaning the cover off in preparation for opening tomorrow when a brick area I stepped on sank down. Pool is 23 years old and never seen this before.

I then went feeling around other areas of the deck and found one other area with a channel but not as deep as this one.

We see holes from moles and voles in the lawn and see squirrels and an occasional racoon running around. So there are various critters roaming the property.

My fix would be to stuff steel wool down the hole and then level the area with fine gravel and put down the bricks.

Any other ideas?

 

[Texas Splash]

 

[ajw22]

You suggesting that be me or my critters?

 

[Texas Splash]

In the pic it almost looks like water made a channel into the hole, but the size of that hole says "critter". What kind of critters are native to your area that would do that? Actually go that far under decking?

 

[Newdude]

Any other ideas?

I had ants pretty bad at the old place. After a couple rounds of fixing this section and that section, I gave up because it never lasted but a couple months.

If I did it again, I had planned on leveling it with unmixed cement instead of sand. I figured the ants wouldn't like it and moisture would eventually harden it.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Is the hole active?

 

[ajw22]

I thought the burrow was from water drainage until I pulled up the brick over the hole.

The hole is only about 2 feet from the edge of the planting area that slopes down. And we found a few holes in the planting area.

I don’t have an inventory of critters roaming my property. My cameras at night pickup red foxes, cats, wild turkeys, deer, squirrels, raccoons….

 

[ajw22]

Is the hole active?

Well I pulled a Bill Murray and ran a lot of water down the hole and nothing popped up or saw where the water was draining out.

How do you figure out active?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Try this instead of water -

 

[JoyfulNoise]

How do you figure out active?

Take a wad of shredded paper and stuff it into the hole. Very lightly bury the entrance of hole - just put loose dirt on it so the critter can dig it out, you're not actually trying to stop it. Wait a couple of days. If you come back and find shredded paper all over the place, then that entrance is active ...

You can try to use the The Giant Destroyer (but don't buy it on amazon ... I get them at ACE for like 1/5th that price). Or, if you have easy access to dry ice, stuff a whole bunch of it into the hole and cover it up with a big rock and dirt. Use asphyxiants only when the critter is NOT active because you want to kill it while it's asleep. Some critters are nocturnal and others are active during the day, so you have to experiment a bit unless you know what you're dealing with.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Allen’s future self …. only younger … (the paradoxical nature of time travel never ceases to amaze ..)

 

[JoyfulNoise]

No updates in a while … perhaps Allen accidentally blew himself up doing his best impersonation of Bill Murray making C4 critters -