Lazer Tripwire

[link to cgi.ebay.com]

Here's a great low-budget solution for protecting your garden from hungry marauders, whether they be neighbors or raccoons. I've done a fair bit of searching for an affordable battery-operated tripwire security system. Most are a few hundred bucks. But this model was a perfect fit for my budget… under $20!

It's actually marketed as a kid's toy, but it works like the real deal. The Lazer Tripwire units are durable plastic, and have an adjustable 'jaw' that let's you secure them to many things (garden posts, fences, etc.). They run on six AAA batteries (see my earlier post on rechargeable batteries and solar chargers in this thread).

You can set-up two, or use three and triangulate the protected space. No one can see the laser beam (but you can see it if you mist it with water). When something or somebody breaks the beam, an alarm goes off. The alarm isn't huge, like a fire alarm, but it's certainly loud enough to send most garden thieves scuttling off into the night.

I bought mine on Ebay for $20, but here's an Ebay seller blowing out a quantity of them for just $11.99 plus $5.95 shipping: