When squirrels and rabbits began nibbling swaths into the flowery landscape of Elvis Presley's former Palm Springs home, the owners asked themselves a simple question.
What would Elvis do?
The animal-friendly King of rock and roll kept a furry and feathery menagerie at Graceland, his Memphis estate. Ducks, chickens, dogs, chimpanzees, guinea pigs, donkeys, even peacocks all lived there at one time.
When Elvis caught one of his peacocks pecking at and admiring its reflection on his black 1960 Rolls Royce, there wasn't peacock pie for dinner that night.
The birds were donated to the Memphis Zoo, said spokesman Todd Morgan.
As for the Palm Springs home, Elvis and Priscilla Presley bought the house in 1970 and Elvis owned it when he died in 1977.
Laura and Reno Fontana, who bought that same home four years ago, love animals too. But not when they chew out chunks of flower beds and plants that cost $9,000.
They tried a spray, some minty smell that thwarted the rabbits, but not the squirrels.
Laura searched the Internet. She found Contech Electronics, a Canadian company that offers animal-friendly solutions to problems.
Bursts of air to scat a cat, an electronic barrier that gives snails a little static shock to help them move along and a motion-active sprinkler called the Scarecrow that painlessly scares the be Jesus out of anything in range of the sensors.
The couple installed six Scarecrows around their property. They shoot a frantic spray of water while the sprinkler twirls in a robotic spasm. (See a funny video of Scarecrow vs. pigeons on the company's Web site contech-inc.com.)
The Fontanas adjusted the streams a bit to out-fox the rabbits and it worked.
In Memphis, the troublemakers aren't Graceland's squirrels and rabbits. Some raccoons kept rooting through trash cans last year, so the staff caught them and relocated them to some woods away from the mansion.
There's also the bird nest situation. Seems that birds build nests every year behind louver shutters on the windows. Tufts of the nest poke through and visitors complain that the mansion looks unkempt.
The property maintenance manager painted plywood to match the shutters and installed it behind the louvers to hide the nests so the birds could stay, operating on a simple directive left by their King:
Don't be cruel.
Source: Cindy Wollf, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Posted: 6th. July 2007
