Get out of my pool!!

If you know me you hear me saying this in my best Penny Marshall voice as the wife of “Satan” in the movie Hocus Pocus (see It’s just a bunch of Hocus Pocus for more on my Hocus Pocus obsession) when she tells the Sisters to get out of her house.  In my case this is aimed at the ducks in our pool.

Now if they would just land in the water, throw some water on their backs and then leave that’d be just fine.  But they hang out and POOP. Either in the pool or on the side or both.  YUCK.

They mostly enjoy the pool early in the morning or later at night when we aren’t awake or watching out for them to be in it.

To the internet I went –

First internet suggestion – alligator pool float.  Most people who tried this said it worked at first but wore off and I’d most likely find the ducks sitting on said alligator after a few days.

Next suggestion – dogs.  Which we have three, but the one that will chase the ducks off is also the one most likely to jump either in the pool after them, or over the pool fence to get them. And her bark is seriously piercing to the ear drum which I don’t think my neighbors would appreciate at 5am.

THEN I read that snakes are also a deterrent…soooooo I found a rubber snake, brightly colored, but it wouldn’t float.  DH to the rescue –  cut pieces of a foam pool noodle and attach it to the snake.

Voila! It’s not pretty, but it’s a floating duck deterrent!  It’s been about 2 weeks since we started using it, and so far so good – no duck poop in the pool, woo!