I feel for ya because I have had the same problems several times. It's hard to believe how much dirt those things can move in a short period of time. Once they get in there and get established it's hard to get them out.
I tried those smoke bombs that Southern States sells and to me it looks like they like the fumes they give off.
If you have some from the same clan as the ones that I had to deal with it's no use packing rocks, bricks, steel plate or anything else in the hole cause they will either just dig them out or dig beside the stuff and still be in business. I use up a whole pallet of concrete landscape bricks trying to fill in holes they were going in and out of.
After I ran out of the bricks and everything else I could find to pack into their holes I thought that maybe I could fill the holes with concrete. I went to Lowes and bought 10 bags of 80 lb mix and several bags of the large landscape rocks to mix in with the small pea gravel that comes in those bags of concrete. I mixed one or two bags kind of wet and dumped them in the hole them mixed a bag with the larger rocks that was kind of stiff and packed it into the hole. I sit there and drink a cool one and once I thought it would be ok to leave I left for the day. When I came back the next morning they had dug right through that mess like it was soft dirt.
I went and got ten more bags and filled the holes again while I was at work so I could keep an eye on them. Nothing happened the rest of the day but the next morning when I came back I found where they had dug another hole where there was no concrete or bricks. I filled that spot full of concrete and bricks and finally I thought I had then so there was no way in or out.
The next day I walked around the building and as I did I could find no where that they had dug on the two sides of the building that didn't have concrete or asphalt around the outside walls.
This building was on a built up pad that had a concrete slab with a concrete parking area in the front. On two sides there was no concrete and this is where I had the most problem up until now. On the other end of the building there was about 5' of fill that sloped up from the asphalt parking lot on that end of the building.
The area that sloped upward to the concrete pad had about 21/2" of asphalt laid down and packed to hold the dirt in place. As I came around the corner to the side parking area I just about pooped my skivies because there was a pile of bright red clay that looked like a small single axle dump truck had dumped in the parking lot.
I said no way somebody would do such a thing, then I looked a little closer and there was this ground hog sitting on top of the pile eating a stalk of corn he had robbed from the guy that lived next door. I was so mad I grabbed a piece of iron pipe that was laying on the ground and chunked it at him for all I was worth. Of course I missed and I remember the sick feeling I had as it sailed 2' over his head and right through the side window of the girl's car that worked the parts counter. Needless to say she wasn't to happy about that and it was her that gave me the idea about gas in the hole and a match.
She said her grand paw did it all the time and it worked for him. I had just about had it with these pesky bastages and at that point I figured, well why not; what's the worst that could happen??? LOL At least that's what I was thinking, it looked good on paper anyway.
She went back in the office to call the glass man out to fix the window before I got a full set of instructions of how ol' gramps used to pull this off with out burning the whole building down but I had a few ideas of my own and set out on a new course of action.
5 gal of gasoline....check!
1 large terrycloth bath towel cut into several pieces.......Check!!!!!!
Save one long piece of the towel for use as a fuse to ignite fuel poured into hog holes.........Check!!!
Uncover several of the stopped up hog holes around the perimeter of building that had been already filled in........Check!!!!
With everything in place I went around to the holes I had dug out and dumped in a modest amount of gas and inserted gas soaked fuse. Then I laid a brick over the hole so I could get the maximum effect. After I had all charges in place I decided I would light them off one at a time, one on each end of the building then the three down the rear of the building thinking there would be no way they could survive what was about to happen, I was ready to toast some hogs.
I had all the holes ready accept the one on the lower end of the building where this new pile of fresh dirt had just materialized. I really at that point didn't know how he had gotten out but as I looked closer I could see that he had dug right through that 21/2" of asphalt like it wasn't even there so I decided this was no regular old groundhog and a little extra gas might be needed in order to be sure I get a clean kill on this beast.
By the time I got that hole loaded and fused I decided that the other holes might need a little freshening up because of the evaporation factor so I set out with gas can in hand and each hole got another cut or so of fresh gas and ran to the other end of the building to finally get my revenge. Got dang!!! I wish I had thought to take the can of gas to a little safer part of the parking lot but I didn't......Oh well.
It went WHasssssssshssss!!! Alright along with some rattling....some shaking....and a small A bomb like boom...........Then there was a small puff of smoke and a little more rattling then came the FIRE!! I didn't know weather to run or put my pants leg out that was on fire. Somewhere in all this I heard several loud noises like bricks or large stones being thrown up against something medal and a loud secondary WHassssssssssshsss!!! and some more smoke and more fire on the other end of the building. Yep the gas can....you guessed it. There was about 40' of fence on that end of the building that had a lot of weeds and brush growing on it, That gas can ignited and took off for the fence setting it on fire along with my boat that was parked beside it.
You know those bricks I laid over the fuse holes I was going to light off one at a time? Well.....One found it's way to the school yard next door where it put a dent in the side of a dumpster. Another one pierced the door of my old pickup truck that I was thinking about restoring one day and one knocked a hole in the side of my now burning boat. All that action and not a single person got hurt.......well accept for a small burn on my leg and my pants that caught on fire in the initial explosion. Oh...and I did soil my skivies a little if you want to count that into the loses.LOL
OH, and the ground hogs you ask. I don't know how many dead bodies were laid to waste under that pad but it didn't deter the ones that were out of the holes that day from taking up action and they were back the next morning ready for work. Although they didn't mess with that building pad too much after that they just started digging under the other two buildings and I stayed pretty busy filling in holes with bricks and concrete until I left that place for a place that was a little less infected with pesky ground hogs.
I thought about trying the gas and fuse thing again but only for a really short second or two. I thought better of it because I still had paid for all the damage that happened the last time I gave that a try. Maybe next time and maybe dynamite would be a little safer
jmo
