Pest-Deterring Motion-Activated Sprinkler

Product Description

Cats, dogs, paparazzi, neighbor children without the athletic skill to control their damn soccer balls--these are the pests that infiltrate our back yards. Encroach our private domains. Stick their noses where they don't... [Read more]

Top Reviews

Annoy your neighbors dogs and cats.
by Honest Reviewer (5 out of 5 stars)
August 12, 2010

My stupid neighbors dont obey the leash laws, and let their pets roam free. I was constantly having to clean cat and dog mess from my yard. It was so bad that when I would mow my lawn the tires of the lawnmower would be totally covered in brown matter, if you know what I mean. So I figured I would give the scarecrow a try. Works great, I have on video two dogs going into my yard to do their business, then the scarecrow blasts them point blank in the face with water. It was Hilarious, one of the dogs took off, but the other one panicked and ran around the circles not knowing how to get out of my yard through the fence, even though my gate was wide open. The dogs haven't been in my yard since. I seen cats get blasted with water too. My neighbors are mad though, because their dogs are now messing in their own yard, and everytime they walk in their yard they step in it, very funny. One thing that needs to be improved though is battery life, 9 volt batteries have very little capacity and go dead in less than a month if the unit goes off alot. It would be great if the unit could run on 4 D cells, then the scarecrow could run more than a year on one set of batteries. I bought lithium rechargeables in order to save money, plus they last longer than alkaline 9 volt batteries. Overall great product and alot of fun to watch it work.
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Deer are gone!
by BigDog (5 out of 5 stars)
July 4, 2015

I live in Pepper Pike, Ohio. Our yard backs up to a stream and woods. Over the past decade we have been inundated with deer. Plants that usually are referred to as "deer proof" have proved vulnerable to deer consumption (example: Joe Pye Weed, Monarda and Sweet Bay Magnolias). We also have plants that they traditionally love - Hostas, anemones, sedum, and every annual known to man. We have used sprays (every week) and rotated them accordingly. Last year - total annihilation by mid July. And we even have a German Shepherd Dog - which they seem to know won't be out all the time. My husband was discussing with neighbors hiring bow hunters to thin out the populations which is now allowed in the city. Instead, we tried the Contech Scarecrow. We installed three of them across our back gardens. We followed people's suggestions about the assembly with rubber gaskets and we check them repeatedly so they don't leak. FANTASTIC results. I have never seen the hosta bloom before. Now the biggest issue is the deer haven't destroyed the back garden -but the weeds are also protected. I will take the weeding over destruction. Please see photos attached. In the last picture you can see the contech head sticking up near the walk way. These pictures were taken from the second story deck - so the spray head looks really small. Thanks for a great and humane product. Update - one year later, the deer have changed their roaming pattern and now I watch them skirt the yard to avoid the water shot.
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GREAT - BUT PLEASE READ FEEDBACK ADVICE
by Gary AL. (4 out of 5 stars)
July 26, 2011

I gave this 4 stars instead of 5 only because if a person doesn't know about how to circumvent its problems, they wont be happy.

We are very pleased with the results we got from using the Scarecrow for our dog problem. It is extremely important that people who buy it read the feedback. It is cheaply made; so if you don't follow the advice in the feedback, you will most likely have a negative experience with it.

I am happy I read every single feedback before purchasing it. I listed below the alterations we made, some of which we saw on the feedback and some being our own ideas. Therefore, my feedback is lengthy, but will help your greatly.

First I'm listing the alterations that EVERYONE must do when you buy the Scarecrow. Later I tell you optional alterations for making it work better for your particular circumstance:

Go to the store and buy:
1. Extra rubber hose-end washers (enough to replace their existing plastic washers and for additional doubling up on washers--more explanation below).
2. Teflon tape.
3. A metal stake. You can use a piece of galvanized pipe, a short length of pre-cut rebar, or a concrete-form stake. We used the concrete-form stake that someone left behind.
4. A high-quality hose reinforced inside. Standard hoses will swell up and eventually split or pop off the hose fitting. We have had no problem with the reinforced hose. Since they seem to only come in long lengths, we just bought hose ends and made one for our Scarecrow and one for the yard.

Instructions for the above items BEFORE putting the Scarecrow into the ground:

Pull out the cheap plastic gaskets inside the fittings and replace each one with TWO better quality gaskets from the store. The reason for this is that they built the threaded fittings too long so that when you screw on the hose and sprinkler, they don't quite reach the gasket. Two of them will take up the gap.

Next, wrap Teflon tape around each of the protruding threaded fittings. If you've never used Teflon tape, here is some help. Gently pull out a good length of it, maybe a foot long. Cut it with scissors rather than trying to break it off. Breaking it off makes it stick together instead of lying flat, making it harder to work. Then keeping it flat, carefully wrap it around the fitting over threads in a clockwise direction (or the same direction you will be twisting on the hose end), wrap several layers around and around. If you only put on 2-3 layers, it will not be enough.

Next, pound your metal stake into the ground. The reasons you are using this instead of just putting the plastic stake into the ground are these. First, if you have hard ground, you will mostly likely damage the plastic stake or the Scarecrow motion detector trying to force it into the ground. (You are not suppose to push down on the motion detector.) Second, if you have soft ground, then each time the water is activated, it will give a little push against your unit and eventually loosen it in the ground. Then the Scarecrow will not stay put.
(There is an optional plastic pipe included in the box. We replaced the plastic stake that goes underneath the Scarecrow with the plastic pipe because of the leaking of the extra hose fitting. The extra hose fitting is so you can run another hose to somewhere else that isn't controlled by the Scarecrow. The cap provided is difficult to get to stop leaking. So we screwed the optional pipe underneath the Scarecrow and put the hose on the bottom of the pipe. The drawback is that when you clamp it onto the metal stake I recommend for pounding into the ground, you have to be careful not to overtighten it around this plastic pipe due to possible cracking. If we have to move the Scarecrow or adjust it, we plan to get galvanized fittings to replace the plastic pipe.)

Now you are ready to attach the Scarecrow. First slide on two metal hose clamps over your stake. Now hold the Scarecrow so the stake is lined up against the metal stake and the unit rests on top. Tighten the hose clamps so they are snug. Now adjust the aim and tighten the hose clamps so it won't move.

Now we are ready for the optional alterations we made. If you plan to use it to make a large sweep across your lawn, you may not need to do any of the following. Our situation was twofold:

First, we needed the Scarecrow to work at a close range. Like all rain-bird-style sprinklers, they are angled to shoot upwards about 45 degrees in order to reach a distance. The problem with this is that if the animal crosses in front of it within about 10 feet, it won't hit it. I saw this complaint in some of the other feedback. To solve this, my husband bought a 45 degree angle galvanized pipe fitting (1/2"). He took off the sprinkler and put on the pipe (again, using Teflon tape). He then put the sprinkler on the end of that. As he screwed the pipe on, he kind of angled it to the side a bit so it would change the angle of the sprinkler. It looks kind of strange since the end result is that the sprinkler kind sits off to the side. This worked great. The sprinkler now squirted low so it covered the area where the dog tended to go onto our lawn to do his business.

The above solution to the Scarecrow not working at close distance now prevents it from spraying more than about 15' or so. We've been waiting to see if the dog figures out that he just has to walk down further and then can do his pooping. So far he hasn't. However, if he does, we plan to add a T pipe on top so that our low-aiming sprinkler can come out one part and we will add a short length of reinforced hose to the other part of the T and put a normal metal sprinkler into the ground. This way, we will have two sprinklers running from the top of the Scarecrow, one for close range and one arched for distance and both coming on at the same time by one Scarecrow.

Our Next Problem Solved of needing to narrow the field of water shooting:

Our situation is that we have a 4' wide strip of lawn running along the side of our house. Our neighborhood is very old, so the houses can be close to a property line. In our case, the lawn had our house on one side and the neighbor's driveway at the edge of the lawn. Even though the neighbors deserve to get sprayed when they drive up and down the driveway (it's their dog that poops on our lawn every single day, twice a day), we don't want to waste water and we don't want to create a war since this is our only problem with them. Anyway, we replaced the plastic sprinkler with a standard metal rainbird sprinkler, because the metal sprinklers have metal wire tabs that you can move them to limit the width of the sprinkler. Since our lawn strip is so narrow, we didn't want the sprinkler to move side to side at all, so my husband moved the tabs together and tie-wrapped them so the sprinkler would be stationary. He also cut the spring on top of the metal sprinkler and tie-wrapped the flap back so the water would just shoot out solid instead of pulsating.

Solution to our last problem of two-wide of a motion detection:

Since our lawn strip is narrow, we didn't want the neighbors setting off the motion detector every time they drive and down their driveway. It will waste water and also wear down the battery. I cut out two squares of plastic out of a black garbage bag and my husband put one on each side of the detector window and taped them with black electrical tape leaving the center prism exposed so it has a more pin-pointed kill zone. I don't know how long the tape will last, but it has done well for a month now even with our summer thunderstorms. Using this method, he narrowed the field of "vision" down to about a half-inch in the middle. It works very well.

We set the sensitivity to 7-1/2 which is perfect. When I want to mow the lawn strip, I just place a thick or dark hand-towel over the lense to prevent detection. That way I don't have to keep turning on or off anything.

So that is end of our alterations. Bottom line is that the dog poops on our lawn no more and so I don't hate the neighbors every time we have to pick up the poop every single day.

UPDATE: We put the Scarecrow away near end of November so it won't break when we have freezing weather. I was afraid that the dog would start pooping there again. However, we were pleased that he developed the habit to go in his own backyard. The whole spring through fall was very successful eliminating this problem. Love the scarecrow.

Just a side note. Since they let their dog loose all the time, our neighbors on the other side of them had nothing but trouble with the dog chewing up everything in their yard and chewed up 4 pairs of their shoes on their own front porch plus hauled off their brand new dog bed! I felt so sorry for them having to deal with this, especially since they have very little income. Finally, another neighbor told the owner that he better tie up the dog; because if he catches him in his yard again bothering his chihuahua, he would shoot him. The problem dog is part pit bull, so he probably meant it. Well, that did it, so none of us have problems with him anymore except that he barks more being tied up. I feel sorry for dogs who have idiot owners. It isn't the dog's fault. They are just doing what dogs when inconsiderate people don't bother training them.

Hope all this helped you.
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Huge disappointment
by Richard Carter (1 out of 5 stars)
July 11, 2016

In my opinion, as someone with 30+ yrs of mechanical experience, this thing is a huge disappointment.

The stake section comes shipped in two pieces, with threading to join the two. Problem is, these won't grab anymore than 1- 1.5 threads before the threaded sections jam on each other; even though the instructions state, "These fitting should only be hand tightened". The threads have jagged crowns and they don't fit each other. Who designed this thing???

Same with the way the Sensor housing attaches to the top of the stake. The stake is a hard, rough-threaded plastic, what appears to be similar to a composite material. The sensor housing's threaded attaching collar is a soft plastic, which when attempted to tighten onto the stake, comes to a stop about one and half complete turns in. The soft plastic collar begins to expand as if it will crack, which usually indicates that the threads on the stake are tapered and the collar is not. (And no before you ask, in none of these cases, are the threads cross-threaded. I'm very careful about that, and back-twist all threaded connections to find the correct matching positions before beginning to tighten.) They appear to be the wrong thread types and the wrong combination of materials to be used for this application.) Since the threaded collar on the sensor housing won't seal down on the stake, the sensor housing flops up and down like a bobble-head doll. No way this is going to seal the flow of water, and I can only guess how many on/off cycles it will take until something breaks.

As for the sprinkler section, it's the same functional design as you would buy in a hardware store to sprinkle your lawn; except, this one appears to be the softest and weakest plastic I've ever seen for such a use.

I'm returning for a refund. Worst part is, I've had to waste time on this. This has been a complete WASTE OF TIME, which I haven't any extra to spare. Starting tomorrow morning, we'll build our own design of the control section and for the rest of it, we can simply use stronger, off the shelf parts already available.
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BUYER BEWARE!!!
by Amazon Customer (1 out of 5 stars)
March 26, 2019

I ordered this item in November. We decided to put it together today....March 26th (Yes, I know, but we are just now planting our flower bed). Putting it together was a hot mess. Came back to Amazon to get assistance, and my item is nothing like the item that I ordered. Cheap piece of mess that has 3 areas that leak, and garden hose will not even attach without popping off. Not happy considering I paid $59.00 for this mess. DO NOT ORDER THIS MESS. I would not be upset had I spent $5 to $10!! Furious!
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This is NOT the Contech Scarecrow
by P. Howard (1 out of 5 stars)
April 11, 2019

I purchased this to replace my Contech Scarecrow, which has been fantastic but needed to be replaced after several years of use. This piece of equipment has a lot of fittings and no directions on how to put it together. No matter how many combinations I tried, the top flew off, or it spewed water from other fittings. I gave up trying. The seller is accepting the return, so I appreciate that. I ordered the real Contech version from eBay. And the real version just arrived.
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The Real ScareCrow (not a fake)
by Tom (5 out of 5 stars)
May 16, 2016

I have been using two of the original ScareCrow sprinklers. One of them is 20 years old now and still fully functional. The 9V battery lasts an entire season. These are very effective at frightening deer away from the gardens...at least for most of the season. After a few months though they will get used to them and more determined to get to your good stuff as other food sources dry up. Been trying to get more of these for some time now but for they were no longer available except for used ones selling for hundreds of $$.

This year I found some on Amazon and ordered three of them. When they arrived I discovered that they were crappy Chinese clones and falsly advertised as the 'ScareCrow'. They were crap and I returned them. So...watch out for the fakes. They fooled me using the ScareCrow name and a photo of a real ScareCrow.

Then I found these. They appear to be the real ScareCrow sprinklers we love. Well made and quite functional. Time will tell if they last another 20 years. I might not last that long...

One odd thing in the product information though. It says origin USA. That is false. These are also made in China. But they are the real thing....
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Very poor quality product
by J. Freer (1 out of 5 stars)
June 11, 2017

This is the worst product I have ever purchased in my adult life! It arrived well packaged and in a timely manner however everything after that was negative. After assembling the parts I connected it to a hose to test it. Every connection leaked a lot of water. After installing an additional hose washer at each connection I was able to stem the leaks except for the one at the standpipe connection to the scarecrow head. Attempting to tighten that caused the female threaded collar to break. After gluing the collar back on I tested it and it worked a few times then the sprinkler head itself blew out of the scarecrow head. I found the pieces and reassembled it and shortly after that the glue joint broke and the unit became totally useless. The couple times it worked it was fun to watch and I believe would be successful at scaring away critters but this device is so poorly designed and made of such cheap fragile materials I cannot possibly recommend it.
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Maybe it's my fault.....
by Amazon Customer (1 out of 5 stars)
July 4, 2017

I purchased this fine engineering marvel about a year ago, thinking it may be useful keeping the deer out of the garden. It sat on a shelf in the shop until today, still brand new in the box. The first thing I discovered when I opened it was the threads on the ground spike were stripped, so it wouldn't screw into the head mount. No biggie, says I, I'm gonna mount it on the fence anyway. So I spend the morning routing hose, hanging it up just so to keep it out of the path of the lawn mower, and then came the big moment. Plug in the battery, do the test, clicks are audible, turn on the water, and.......nuthin'. Turn off the water, turn on the water. Nuthin. Check the water pressure (50psi - all good there). Change the battery. Nuthin. Next step is for me to either return it or tear it apart. I have had the thing so long that returning it is out of the question. So......upon opening I find the clicking thing is a cone shaped plunger activated by an electromagnet. The circuit board contains the timer, so the magnet energizes and shoots the plunger into a diaphragm. There's a little teeny tiny hole in the diaphragm that the plunger plugs when the magnet is energized. All that water goes through that tiny little hole. Amazing. I cleaned out the hole (wasn't plugged, but since I was there), shined up the plunger with some emery cloth, and put it back together. Still nuthin. Right now it's still all hooked up and clicking away in the hopes that God has had a good enough chuckle and will magically make it work. Not keeping my hopes up there. I'll let you know if it does. Otherwise my bottom line on this thing is.......It. Will. Drain. Your. Checkbook.
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... but I don't think the spray pattern is as good as the original Contec CRO101 Scarecrow
by Old Goat (1 out of 5 stars)
June 21, 2018

I have downgraded my rating. THIS IS A MAJOR WARNING TO PURCHASERS. This product is now a Scotts MiracleGro product and they are VERY selective in handling issues. I had an issue and forwarded that to Scotts. This was their written response, "Products bought from auction sites or third party sites are not purchased from authorized retailers and are excluded from our guarantee. You need to contact the seller through Amazon." If you can avoid it, never buy from a third party seller!!

It works but I don't think the spray pattern is as good as the original Contec CRO101 Scarecrow. I have 4 of the original Contech scarecrows and have had them for at least 5 years or more. I think they are more solidly constructed and have a better pattern, but unfortunately the product is now in the hands of Ortho products and according to the customer service rep who I talked to about the spray pattern the unit has be redesigned twice. The customer service rep, although very pleasant, could only quote from the published manual. When I inquired about how far the unit sprayed, the response was always, "it covers x number of square feet" which is totally unrelated to how far the pattern extends since the pattern can be adjusted from a very narrow pattern to almost a full circle. No amount of math will lead you to an answer. Guess I will have see how long it lasts.

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