Usually these posts are focused on me rambling on about whatever is going through my mind, but this time I thought I should actually recruit you, yes; you Dear Reader in helping me solve a mystery that has been in my mind ever since I first came to Japan.If you would please take a look at the picture here in the post, what you see is the corner of an otherwise normal looking house, nothing too exciting about that or the air condition machinery. But please notice the water filled pet bottles strategically placed around the corner. For those of you living in Japan, this is not an unusual sight at all, quite the contrary, and they are usually placed especially around potted plants or small gardens towards the street. The purpose of these bottles, as far as I have come to understand it, is to prevent cats (and dogs?) to pee and stink it up and possibly ruining any greenery (obviously not the case in this picture, but still).
What I have not figured out and would need advice and assistance with are the following two questions?
1. Does this actually work? Are animals more reluctant to pee in pet bottle heavy areas?
2. If it actually does work, what is the rationale and how come Japan is the only country that utilizes this innovative method?
Just looking at myself and my peeing habits, I could say that I would probably prefer to not pee among the pet bottles due to the increased risk of back-splash on my feet and legs, but I am not sure if other animals agree.
Ok, any experts on the subject around?
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11 comments:
It doesn't work.
There's no rational basis for it.
It's the same sort of pseudo-science as blood groups affecting personality, or electric fans suffocating you if you are asleep.
My parents have a fake wasps nest hung up in their back garden. The rationale is that wasps will see the nest (it's a sort of roundish grey bag about the size of a basket ball) and decide not to build a nest nearby.
There hasn't been a wasp's nest built in their garden since the fake nest was put up. Then again, there hadn't been a wasp's nest built there for over 40 years anyway.
The fake nest also seems to work against tigers and elephants.
Wow, my uneducated guess is that the dogs don´t mind the splashing. Rather that they won´t piss on the "fresh drinking water" in the pet bottles. That would make sense i guess.
But only if it actually works...
Snopes has an entry on this:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/lawn.asp
Japan's variation could be homegrown, or it could have been brought over by crazy foreigners.
One explanation I've heard is that the animals see reflections (refractions?) of themselves moving in the bottles, get spooked, and run off without doing their business. That seems like something that would work better in a smooth, round bottle than those squared ones with the ridges all over them though.
Here is an old article from Japan Times. It is from Japan Times so it must be correct. It says the bottles are to scare away cats. They don't work. They do scare away the NHK man. So not all bad.
In the UK people hang CD's up on string in the garden to scare away birds and cats.
Yes. Celine Dion CDs are particularly good for that. Also keep away small children.
Hey guys, thanks for the comments and theories, but I still feel that we haven't really gotten to the bottom of this yet!
I lean towards RMilners attitude, but I just don't know, it is so widespread after all...
I'm a bit surprised, I heard the target of those were crows! Because they like shiny stuff and such.
I heard about the cat story too. Could work in a way, as cat fur works a lot of static electricity and passing nearby a bottle of water (could) actually draw their hair to it, like when you get your arm close to a TV screen.
But I doubt this works so great, and you would probably have to change the water often too.
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