Need something really stinky

Or a battery powered electric fence about face high.

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Even better than skunk scent is Foc Pi**......seriously have used it several times and it STINKS!!

How about a simple sign that says something like "please cut your other wood or we will have issues" or something to that effect. Or just go over to their house and ask them. sure they will deny it, but it is likely to cause them to stop, knowing that you realize the theft. Or maybe go ask them if this is the brand of beer you guys drink while holding the crushed can, then transition into asking about the wood.

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I have a high desert arid mountainous climate. Working towards self sufficiency. The potentials of plant breeding and building micro climates amaze me. We must learn to ride the wave.

First what are your neighbours like? Are they bums or are they clean hard workers down on their luck? I'd go talk to them first, then call the cops and have them come out, and ask them how you can prevent theft of your wood.
Fishing LINE with some bells or tin cans (garbage cans? lol) should make enough noise to wake you up.
How about setting a few gopher traps right along the edge of the tarp where they have to lift it up?
Or sit out there yourself and catch them red handed.

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A wise person speaks when they have something to say but a fool speaks just to say something

Rubber. Shavings or small strips of rubber.

Hair, wool and feathers.


You could send him the beer can back with a note on it that says they forgot to leave a few dollars donation in it for the wood they took.

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Several years ago I had someone stealing some muskrats. I made some thin slats with long nails sticking up and put them by the one trap that I decoyed with a muskrat. Next mornig everything was gone,the rat and trap,and the slats and nails,never lost anymore rats. You might try that around your wood pile, just remember where they are.

What about boring holes and inserting smoke bombs. Easy to find the house with green smoke.

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i know they make powders now that shine under black light so you can track animals at night with a blacklight flashlight, simply surround most of the woodpile with the powder except the know route that dosent have powder and next time wood is missing follow the tracks at night to the bandits

Is stealing what "clean hard workers" do when they're down on their luck? Really?

Similar to my thought - rig up a hand held, pin activated panic alarm, like this:

Panic Alarms: How to Use and Different Types | TBO-TECH Self Defense Blog

I have teenage boys. Too bad you can't use their PE uniforms as a deterent. My oldest bragged last week that he hadn't washed his all year. It was bad enough to knock a buzzard off a sun puffed carcass.

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Everyone's got ideas for how to sabotage the wood... why not be pro-active? 1) Move the pile closer to the house. 2) Set up a deer cam (a baby monitor would be a pain in the tail as you'd be listening to static most of the time), 3) Walk next door and ask them. Don't be threatening or anything, but simply ask them. If that's too dangerous, call them on the phone. Those would be my thoughts...

I would go over and talk to them as a "concerned neighbor". Let them know that someone has stolen from your wood pile. As a good neighbor you wanted to let them know so they could be on the alert as well. Also let them know that the thief left evidence at the scene that has been taken in for forensic testing. It should be pretty easy to get the DNA off of the beer can. And as soon as the results come back the police will be quick to handle the problem. Let them think that you are just letting them know so they can protect their own property. I mean, that's what good neighbors do.

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THIS is the best strategy so far! Excellent!

The op asked for ideas to make the wood undesirable when burned so that is why everyone gave suggestions for that. I agree that there are other solutions. We were simply answering the question asked.

To the op, I hope you find a way to stop the thief. Bad neighbors make life miserable. Do you know the homeowner? Is it possible that his stealing tenants are causing other problems and he might appreciate knowing what is going on so that he can evict them?

Without being a fly in the ointment, I think that the timeframe is way too short. I understand what the individual was asking for, but if a person responds in a way that winds up causing injury or some other form of damage to the offending party, they could far too easily drag themselves into the situation. Be direct. (don't be confrontational, but be direct). Maybe the neighbors run on Natural Gas or something, but had a party, and someone went out to a woodpile they thought belonged to the hosts (?)... I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I'd think that before stink bombs / explosives / or any other manner of unpleasantries ensued, a person's best bet would be to communicate... Questions: What is the distance from the wood pile to the owner's house? What is that distance from the offending parties' house? Are there boundary markers or anything clearly specifying ownership? Has anything been shared in the past? If so, what? Has the owner of said wood-stock ever borrowed anything in the past? etc etc... I'd like to hear from the initiator of the thread on these things before inciting them to pack a hollow log with gunpowder or similar...

Why not just get a cheap game cam? Then you will have a nice picture of who is doing it to give to the police. After that they won't likely bother you as they won't dare, thinking you have the place wired for video and won't take their crap. If you do anything to booby trap the wood you will more likely end up in trouble than them and in civil court all they need to do is prove a preponderance of evidance to sucessfully sue you. You are far better off using the cops.

This was a few years ago, but a completely true sorry though I do not blame anyone of you if you do not believe me...such are the authorities here though.

We had a firewood pile located on a country road, public but isolated with no houses around. One day my Uncle is driving down the road and sees these people with their truck backed up to the pile and throwing in cut up and split wood. As he approaches, they see him and take off...

So he is chasing them, gets on his cell phone and calls the local Sheriff call center for emergencies. He tells them their plate number, and then run it while he is on the phone, then they say, "Oh these people are very poor and probably need heat for the winter. You guys have plenty of land and can afford to give them some wood", and that was the end of it.

Now this is a VERY small town, and it is true we are a big family with large land withholdings, but that is not the point. If people ask we have been known to give them wood, but to just steal it...that is not right.

As for the original question: I would pack a few sticks of wood with silage. I do not know anything that is more stinky that "sticks" to something like silage. It is just rancid and acidic. I put a whole bucket in my house when my ex-wife had the house appraised during our divorce. It came in $30,000 lower then what it originally had been valued at, though I do not know if the eye-watering, gagging ordor emminating from the bucket of silage in the laundry room had anything to do with it? :-)

In the end we decided that if they wanted a warm house, they would get it. We had a nice little fire going in their hearth a few days later, and their walls, their roof, their floor...they never took another stick of firewood though.

Am I understanding you correctly? That you burnt someones house down over firewood?

I didn't think it was a win or lose game elections...oh never mind...