Repellent failure

Well I guess my rodent repellent is not working. Or perhaps I am not eating or drinking the correct things to make it effective. I hadn't been putting it down for a couple days but was still checking for evidence of Mr. Gopher's return. For days there was no sign of him. I thought he had moved on to greener pastures such as the neighbor's house, which has been vacant for months, and would be perfect for him. But no, he decides to return and annoy me. Yesterday my brother Rick stopped by, asked about the gopher, and I said he apparently was gone. An hour after he left I go out and look between the house and the shed, and sure enough, there is a whole in the same spot. The concrete pieces I had placed in the hole were moved revealing a nice hole going under the shed. I opened the shed, stamped on the floor, to scare him out if he was there, and when there was no sign that he was, I once again took a cup, filled it with repellent and splashed it in the hole and replaced some of the concrete pieces and covered it all with leaves. A little while later I splashed more repellent over the area. Not easy to produce the repellent on demand. This morning I went out to check, and to my dismay, I find that the repellent didn't work, as the hole was there again. Again, I did my stamping routine, filled in the hole, assuming he was out, and then cut two pieces of a metal fence to place on top of the existing wall/fence at both ends of the space between the shed and house. Before this I had only a couple of cinderblocks stacked at one end and the other was blocked by the aforementioned fence which is only eighteen inches high. Now both ends are blocked by a three foot high barricade.

My question as to whether I barricaded him or out was just answered. As I sit on the patio writing this entry I heard a rustling sound in the other neighbor's yard, at the back corner behind their shed. Sure enough, there he was, moving along between the fence and the shed. Then he apparently went under the shed. So, unless there are two gophers in the neighborhood, he is possibly now living under a shed, but it isn't mine. We shall see.

Updates to follow.