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Topic: Fox incident - advice please!!
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27/8/2007 at 11:31am
Location: Scotland. Outfit: Conway Camargue Lots of Vangos. .
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Joined: 19/6/2004 Diamond Member
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I`ve had one fox incident that I know about. We somewhat foolishly left a rubbish bag outside the tent and the fox had a field day ripping it apart and removing the chicken bones...over about three other pitches. I`ve been fanatical about binning every scrap of rubbish last thing at night since. Also, making sure there`s no open food in the tent. I never allow food or any drink but plain water in the inners, and ll other foodstuff is kept in zipped up coolbags or the fridge/coolbox. (This is helpful for discouraging mice as well.)
As to your fox...well, any self respecting urban fox will come up to inspect a new object dumped slap bang in the middle of "his" patch, alas. And scent mark it, and have a taste...even try playing with it. Hence the gnawing and the urine marks. I do doubt though that the fox would try to get in while it could smell humans inside...they`re not daft, and give us a wide berth if not cornered. I would think that the scratches on the outside of the pod were more likely put there on a night the tent was unoccupied. And every time you cleaned his scent marks off, he`ll have replaced them.
My advice? Don`t leave it up there long term, but take it down if you`re not sleeping in it. The fox will persist until his curiosity is satisfied...and foxes are nosy. As to the waterproofing...I presume you`ve rinsed, rinsed and rinsed again? I`d give any patch that you`d put detergent on a good ten minutes with a hose, just to make sure. Then let it dry well and use some spray-on Fabsil from the camping shop. Unfortunately though it`s likely the tent fabric has been permenently damaged, though whether from urine or the detergent/dettol mix it`s difficult to say. I would stick to just hosing down any future scent marks with plain water. Hopefully this will leave enough residual odour (to the fox) that it won`t remark the tent.
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29/8/2007 at 2:41pm
Location: South Devon Outfit: Vango Diablo Cabanon Wild Country
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Joined: 24/5/2007 Silver Member
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As to deterring the fox, this is supposed to work, get your men folk to wee around the garden, I suppose its their scent marking? Try it and see?
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31/8/2007 at 10:21am
Location: Leicester Outfit: Outwell Oregon Twin
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Hello again...
I have a success story to tell...
Thanks for the marking your own territory tip off. Have suggested it to Rich and he's game! Also in the process of potty training our toddler, so rather than tipping the wee in the compost bin, we can use that too!
As for the tent...
Well, I heeded the sensible advice: Put the tent back up, rinsed, rinsed, rinsed, rinsed some more and bought some Fabsil - but the tent didn't dry in time for dusk that evening and I didn't want to risk any more markings on it. So, I took it down and went to bed, thinking I would re-erect and Fabsil the next day.
In the night I had an idea...and I am slightly ashamed of myself in announcing it here but I will be honest with you (even though I wasn't exactly honest with Blacks!)
I decided to try a complete long shot and next day I took the tent back to Blacks. As I walked in with it under my arm, the sales assistants clocked me and said 'Oh dear, this doesn't look good!' and I agreed. I went on to say how I had put the tent up in the garden to test it, spent two nights in it, came to take it down and noticed the webbing strap had ripped. All true - I just omitted the information about fox activity and the fact that it had been weed on and rinsed. Anyway, they took one look at the strap, said it was bad, didn't question how it might have happened and did me a straight swap for a new one!!!! What's more, I didn't even have my receipt (unusually for me I have completely mislaid it - normally keep everything safe!) - luckily they remembered me being in the shop buying the tent first time round.
So I am absolutely chuffed to bits and feel very very lucky, having learnt very valuable lessons about camping in my own back garden and tent care. I have also learnt that Blacks have absolutely fantastic customer service!
Yes, I do feel slightly guilty but I don't think it's crime of the century as I didn't lie, I just withheld some information - and I couldn't PROVE the tent was damaged by a fox - same as they couldn't prove it wasn't. Sorry if any of you think what I did was wrong but for me it's all worth it as I now have a fresh start with my lovely new tent!
Hope to post soon with some positive camping tales - only I don't think we'll go for it in the back garden again until our territory is well and truly established!
Thanks again everybody for your advice...
------------- Vitamin M
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