The Home Improvement Thread

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Sliver

If you don't put fabric down weeds grow through your rock or mulch. If you put fabric down it doesn't. This isn't rocket science.

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

The landscape fabric I laid down 5 years ago (black volcanic rock on top) gets like maybe 10 weeds a year growing through it. Yank them out, round up spray and good to go for another year.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

This is almost as bad as the electricians having a pissing match.

I was just looking for some suggestions...

[Weitz]

Has anyone had a deck torn out and rebuilt with composite decking lately? If so would you happen to have a rough cost per square foot or other estimated cost?

Just in the preliminary stage of potentially replacing our deck and looking for rough costs.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Has anyone had a deck torn out and rebuilt with composite decking lately? If so would you happen to have a rough cost per square foot or other estimated cost?

Just in the preliminary stage of potentially replacing our deck and looking for rough costs.

Seven billion dollars per square foot.

[Looch City]

Weeds are easy as eff compared to ####ing squirrels. What's the best way to kill or permanently maim squirrels?

####ers have ####ing started to chew through and my hanging patio lights now. Seriously, they're extra annoying this year.

[CroFlames]

Air rifle. Yes they are "illegal" in the city, but they don't make noise and no one will call the cops on you. And if they do, it was likely a neighbor so just huck it over the fence when the cops arrive.

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/s...-1756379p.html

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/t...-3751733p.html

[Fuzz]

Go buy a bag of peanuts and sprinkle them around nearby, away from your house. Disregard this advice if you are my neighbour.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Air rifle. Yes they are "illegal" in the city, but they don't make noise and no one will call the cops on you. And if they do, it was likely a neighbor so just huck it over the fence when the cops arrive.

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/s...-1756379p.html

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/t...-3751733p.html

They're not noiseless, but I think the sound could be mistaken for a nail gun from someone installing a roof. Just be careful as those plastic pellets can really ricochet. I have a small one around the 150 fps range and the pellets have bounced off brick/concrete and straight back at me before. Always wear protective eye wear. I think at around 300+ ish, they might shatter on such surfaces instead.

Dying squirrels make screeching noises, so along with bylaw issues, I don't know if it's a good idea to be shooting at them.

Probably better to do stuff like put aromatics that the squirrels hate. Another idea is that the landscaping fabric pisses everyone off about their efficacy, so I assume installing that stuff may also piss off squirrels trying to bury food in your yard.

[CroFlames]

Shoot them with metal BBs.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Shoot them with metal BBs.

But then you’ll poke a hole in the landscape fabric and get weeds

[topfiverecords]

What you need to do is take a bag of peanuts and go around sticking them in the ground under the roots of all your weeds and let the squirrels go to town digging up your weeds to get the peanuts.

[Looch City]

But before that, take a syringe and inject some long term poisoning chemical into the peanut.

Squirrel eats peanut and a week later his nuts fall off. No more reproduction.

Next year, less squirrels!

...but more bobcats?

[Geraldsh]

Check out squirrel flinders, at least get some entertainment out of the little buggers.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Well, I guess we've found the limit of CP's brain trust and it ends just before 'landscape fabric' of all things.

If any one of you does any sort of xeriscaping or maintenance-free bed without first putting down landscape fabric I'll kill you myself. Don't subject the rest of us to your weedy mess.

Holds the rock or mulch in place? As if. It typically makes it slippery if you're on an incline. Things jam into exposed soil much easier, so fabric isn't an advantage from that perspective at all.

And doesn't prevent weeds from coming up? Wtf am I reading? That's exactly what it does. I've done more landscaping than anyone. It literally stops weeds from coming up as its main job and the good stuff does a virtually perfect job of that.

Drainage? Water goes right through. My entire front yard is zeriscaped and on a hill and water doesn't run down the fabric or anything. It goes right through as though it were grass.

Does it break down into microplastics? I don't doubt that part at all, but who fkn cares at this point. There are way bigger problems in the world. It's just not a big deal if some microplastics leach into your micro flower bed. I'll take that and enjoy my beautiful yard over some white trash nasty loser with his waist-high weeds trashing up my neighbourhood because he's scared of some mild toxic waste his backyard. Life's short. Fk microplastics.

Finally, if you guys are getting weeds in your beds even though you're using landscape fabric I guarantee it's because you cheaply/lazily used bark mulch instead of rocks. You wonder why you can take two $15 bags, fit them in the trunk of your Accord and spread them out in five minutes and have a great looking flower bed without any downside? The fkn downside is that mulch starts breaking down 35 seconds after you dumped it in spot and weeds start growing out of it by the end of the season. Then the sun bleaches it and you have a nasty mess of faded organics junking up your yard. Use rocks.

Epic Sliver rant. 10/10. Would read again.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

What you need to do is take a bag of peanuts and go around sticking them in the ground under the roots of all your weeds and let the squirrels go to town digging up your weeds to get the peanuts.

These guys are on the case! Wildlife Exterminators extraordinaire!