One customer bought and installed the secure 2×4 Bar holder kit to keep the bears out of his garbage!
I had the great privilege of seeing a mama bear work very hard on a small shed designed to store garbage cans for an apartment complex.
After watching that bear, I can offer a few suggestions that might help secure your garbage a little bit more. I’m not a bear expert, but maybe these bullets could help.
- A mama bear is big and she can and will use her weight to give leverage. This means that nails and maybe even screws can be tore out of the wood.
- Any edges are a place for a mama bear to get her claws under and she will definitely use that.
- A mama bear will sense weakness and work on the weak area more. So any flimsy edge will attract her attention.
- A mama bear will experiment with things. In other words, a movable piece of metal, like on a latch, will attract her interest and she can probably solve a latch puzzle.
- Mama bear will not give up.
I think it goes without saying that bears will keep after a latch and beat it, so you DO have to have a lock.
If your bears can pick a lock or pick the combination, you might want to move or at least setup a camera as you got a very cool viral video on your hands!
I’m looking at the customer’s trash enclosure and even now, after seeing Missy Bear at work, I can see that she will get her claws at the bottom and pry up from the bottom.
Here are the plusses with this setup.
- I don’t think mama bear can break a 2×4.
- I know mama bear cannot possibly get a 2×4 out of the closed 2×4 secure bar holders.
- The 2×4 bar holders with locking tabs can accommodate a padlock. I don’t think mama bear can break a padlock.
- The 2×4 bar holders probably should be secured with a BOLT (coming soon on this site) with a good washer setup to keep the bolts from pulling through the wood.
I might suggest a few improvements to the pictured receptacle based on my observing mama bear.
- Try to get as little space as possible between the bottom of the door to the ground to make it hard to get those claws into.
- I would move the 2×4 bar holder system from the top of the door to the center of the door (vertically), because if she does get her claws underneath the doors she gets less leverage.
- I would also put the 2×4 bar a little lower so that if she does get her claws behind it, she can’t get full down leverage on the 2×4 bar.
If you have ideas to make your bear proof trash cages (wooden or steel) even more secure, would LOVE to hear your comments. I’ll approve everything constructive. Also, depending upon what you say, I’ll “de-insult” what you write and also clean up any foul language.
My position is that if you use my secure 2×4 bar holder to secure your bear proof garbage can box then the strength of the 2×4 bar will create a super strong bear garbage deterrent.