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Put a rat trap in it. It won’t do him any damage.

Rather than a bungee, how about something non-stretching? A piece of light rope or a strap? There are knots easy and quick to tie and untie, and straps that adjust in length and hav quick hook/unhook plastic catches. If the bin has a flexible lid you could simply toss a piece of board on top before securing the whole thing.

It’s not very flexible. It’s heavy plastic. There’s a place for a padlock, but it’s busted (I put a clamp on it and I think he busted it).

I don’t really have any rope or strap. I’m hoping the clatter of the chairs spooks him off. They’re very nervous.

I’m watching him on camera now, sniffing around my chicken houses.

I’m not sure this is the same boy. This is a big badger, and he wasn’t interested in my bin. Though I do think he snuffled the area for spilled chicken food.

OF COURSE my cameras are acting up. Not so much the cameras as the wifi connection.

Maybe one of those motion sensor lights?

He didn’t like those chairs, nosiree. It *is* the same beast, I reckon. I eventually went out and spooked him, but I’m sure he’ll be back tonight. It’s not even 11.

Good God Swease…that medical abstract was about stupid humans putting an eye out with an oversized rubber band…critters are way too smart to get hit in the eye. Concrete block on the lid and yer problems solved.

These guys are super strong, Fritz. Any block light enough for me to lift is probably too light to keep them out. They’ve been known – often – to bulldoze down wooden chicken houses like they were nothing.

Which is why I’m sitting up watching.

That’s a decent sized badger! And you went out there without something that goes bang?!!

They’re very shy, Armybrat. It’s kind of a weird feeling, but there’s nothing to fear in the English countryside. The worst thing you could possibly find is a human, followed by a domestic dog.

Where I come from, you could run across a bear or a lynx or a catamount or even a rabid coon, but there are just no dangerous mammals here. Or rabies.

Thwarted! He couldn’t get past my chairs. I reckon we’re at the beginning of his nightly rounds and he never came back.

@Stoaty…how about leather belts? Most of us have them laying around unused. You can connect them to get the girth you need…and they are thick enough to ward off chewing through.

I use them for all sorts of tieing-up jobs…I buy a handful at the thrift store for a few bucks.

No wild boars or feral pigs in the woods?

There are feral pigs in parts of Sussex, BJM, but nowhere very near me. There’s an old folks home not far away that is signposted not to go on the grounds after dark on account of angry oinks.

So “oinks” is what you call old folks there? Oh, never mind. I get it now.

I walked right up to him and he didn’t notice me until I spoke.

What did you say? “wanna rassle?”

I gots a possum problem.

Possum keeps wandering into the house. Actually, I shouldn’t say wandering: He clearly is scouting out a place to live and loves cat food. (Every creature great and small seems to love the damn cat food.)

So we shut up every night to keep him out. And then all night “meow” cat wants in “meow” cat wants out “meow” but I just let you out!

@Blake – simple, “meow” is looking for the door to summer fields and fat lazy mice with just enough jump in them to make them interesting.

I miss our 4:00 AM “Where are you!” alarm.

Oh, yeah, these cats are chatty.

Sometimes they’ll just come up to you and meow for an extended period, like something’s going on and you just gotta know about it, but damn you’re a dumb human, and the night is alive with mice and birds and cat politics…

The last cat, may she RIP, was a prison cat. We fetched her from the pound moments before her scheduled denouement.

When she wanted in, she would bang like a mofo on the metal security door. Then get her claw stuck because she was not good at retracting them.

To go out? She would walk out to the front door, and quietly sit down. That would wake me up and I’d let her out. Still not sure how she pulled that one off.

When the chatty kittens first arrived, she started meowing occasionally too. Sounded like she’d been chain-smoking and drinking whisky her whole life.