Water Bottle Defense

Posted on 15. Jul, 2006 @ 9:01 am by in Culture Views: 248

Can you guess why these water bottles are sitting outside this Japanese home?

Water Bottles
Water Bottles

The reason is to keep cats and crows and other undesirable animals away from the flowers. It’s common knowledge here, that these animals cannot come close to these water filled “pet-bottles”.

I don’t think this actually works though… Apparently it’s something about the way the bottles reflect the light that scares the animals enough to keep them away.

Has anyone else ever heard about this?

Does this work? What’s the deal?

- Harvey

  • mike h

    I wonder what bottles of beer would do?

  • http://www.hexpirate.com/ hexpirate

    I’m with Mike. Please test this theory using Beer and/or mixed drinks. =)

  • spacejase

    sup…yea! i noticed this too in Shibuya around some shrubbery near the road…it was actually in the city. I thought that this is the way that the japanese deliver fresh water to the neighbors. I was thinking…wow…the delivery people make it look so nice and uniform around the tree for the customer…HAHAHA.

  • http://bramble.exblog.jp/ undrentide
  • http://misterwake.blogspot.com Mr. Wake

    Yeah, where I live there are more water bottles than plants the water bottles are “protecting.” Of course , the unprotected plants seem to suffer no ill effects from local fauna. Just look at the above photo. The yellow and orange flowers in their exposed boxes are doing just as well as the purple ones in their fortress.

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    Hahaha, in the wikipedia entry that undrentide sent, one line says…

    これを行ったことにより、ペットボトル中の水が太陽光を収束させ火事になった事故がある。なお、今日ではこれら水入りペットボトルの風説については、消費者団体やテレビ番組上での実地テストにより、効果が全く無い事が知られている。

    There was one time when this was tried, and the sunlight shining through the bottle caused a fire!

  • Sada

    There is a custom in Mexico of hanging plastic sandwich bags of water in doorways to repel mosquitos. I wonder if any of those have caused fires.

  • illicitus

    I thought stagnant water would actually encourage mosquitos? Some areas which occassionally have outbreaks of dengue advise against have stagnant water around the home.

  • http://www.japannewbie.com harvey

    Well if the sandwich bags are closed, I guess the mosquitos wouldn’t be attracted… But yeah I think you’re right illicitus, standing water does attract mosquitos.

  • Sada

    I was told that the light reflecting from the bags during the day scared kept the mosquitos from flying near the bags. They also really seem to believe that it works.

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