Umm… CRAP, RABBIT! I don’t own this house!!!

[Rex]

So I’ve had Coffeebean for 4 years now.  He is at least 5 years old, maybe older.  In the time I’ve had him, he has been a 98% of the time free range house bunny with absolutely zero damage to flooring/etc.  He lives in the office, and has free run of that room when I am at work, etc.  I was in here with him yesterday and heard a scratching sound.  He had wedged himself behind a big plastic tub that serves as our linen closet.  I pulled the tub away from the wall and there is a HUGE chunk of carpet GONE!  He ate all the way down to the wood (Well, he didn’t ingest it – there is also a nice fluffy pile of carpet fibres and pad chunks).  Well, he went straight into lockdown 

 

I am renting and the carpet was worn out and crap when I moved in, but I am so stressed out about how my landlord will react.  She gets way too personal and nosy and I doubt she will register that I will pay the damage (or think it is a free ticket to charge me for recarpeting a whole house that really needed new carpet before I even moved in!).  If I patch it behind her back, I will have to pull carpet from the closet, and I doubt I can find a match for the closet.  It is patterned and old.  If I owned the place it wouldn’t be a bit deal, the deal is navigating the judgemental landlord.

 

Because of the landlord stress, I am afraid to let my bunny out of lockdown if I am not supervising him.  I blocked it off, but he keeps trying to figure out how to get back there to continue his remodeling project.  I am afraid he will just pick a new spot.  How do I keep him from tearing up the carpet?

He has chewable toys, a cardboard maze, a two story condo with a rug, blankets, an open carrier with pillows, a tunnel.  Why all of a sudden the interest in shredding the carpet down to the wood?  Its not like he just hit adolescence… 

[kinggoblin]

I wish I knew how to make a rabbit leave the carpet alone… My bunny tore a big chunk of carpet up behind the couch. This is a brand new apartment too! He also did a little spot in a corner in another room but its not that noticeable…… hopefully. I would try blocking off all the areas he can hide behind, I can’t leave mine out unsupervised either anymore and he has to live in the kitchen because he just won’t leave the carpet alone, its the first and only thing he is interested in outside of his pen. Spraying vinegar is also a temporary ( until it dries ) fix to ward them away.

I’m just glad the apartment is realllllly small and the carpet is crappy anyways, in 2 yrs its already worn out in high traffic areas, so hopefully when we move out in 3-5 years they won’t be too pissed…..

[LBJ10]

Put something heavy over the spot. That’s really the only way to stop them from working on it, unless you block off the area entirely.

[peppypoo]

Depending on the carpet and the size of the missing chunk, you might be able to do some patch-up work. Peppy had a phase when she was all about tearing up carpet, so I saved the fibers and when I moved out I took tweezers and super-glued them to kind of cover up the bald spots, and nobody ever noticed haha.

[lindsay715]

in my old house all the floors were carpeted, and wesley’s favorite thing to do was pull up the fibers against the wall under my bed. he’s small, so he didn’t do much damage, but with enough time who knows what he was capable of… i piled a bunch of old books and calendars on top of the spot he liked to dig in, and he quickly got used to digging in and tearing apart those instead of the carpet. unfortunately this kind of thing is only a temporary fix… there’s no telling really when they’ll decide to pick a different spot

btw, i don’t think i will ever be able to get those sounds out of my head… the rapid scratching and triumphant ripping-out of carpet fibers… lol

[Malp_15]

Peppy that’s hilarious! Haha good way to get your damage deposit back

[Stickerbunny]

Stickers has done that to my carpet in so many places and we are renting too – we just have all corners blocked off and keep a strict eye on her (she’s only allowed out of her wood room when I can watch her) and when we move out, we’ll offer to pay the damages, the landlord doesn’t need to know until then.

[Huckleberry]

If you can stand to listen to this guy through the whole video, it shows you a pretty easy way to fix it. http://youtu.be/WH7zuWQpDik You can buy a small chunk of the carpet at a store, maybe you can even find a sample of carpet that matches it at a carpet store for free!!!!

To keep if from happening, I get sheets of cardboard for Huckles to dig at. I work in a grocery store so I can pick up the 3’x4′ sheets that are placed between pallets on the truck and bring them home. You could probably find out when the trucks come to local stores and ask if you could have those sheets or just get large boxes. Just make sure you dont have any that chemicals spilled on them.

If you want something more attractive, you can buy area rugs and just cover the room with them. You can find cheaper rugs at walmart or discount stores or garage sales (if you’re lucky).

[Rae]

Imp loved chewing on the carpet in my old apartment. There were three or four bald spots going on at the same time and it was just ridiculous. >.> I got pretty lucky because because I found a really close match as a free sample at Home Depot. I just ended dying it a darker color with some watered down paint, cutting it to fit, and gluing it down. If the hole isn’t particularly huge you can always cut tiny strips from where the carpet backs up against the walls, or if you’re really desperate you can pluck individual carpet fibers from everywhere and recreate the pattern. It’s a pain, but I helped my cousin do it once where her dog liked to scratch on the floor. Good luck!

[Rex]

Thanks for the help! I kinda freaked out when I saw how big the hole is. He chewed 12″ along the sliding closet door thing and 3″ to 4″ into the room. It was behind one of those storage boxes, so I didn’t notice it until I was in there when he was working on it one day and heard him scratching at it. That must be why he was always doing binkys away from that wall every time I opened the door for the past couple months… Ugh. Guess I’ll go to Home Depot to see if I can find anything remotely close to this carpet.

["floppy doggies" mommy]

Hi I am new here and new too being a rabbit mommy BUT… I also had this problem. What I did was used this spray I had left from when my dog was a puppy. it’s called sour apple or bitter apple you can buy it at most pet stores. Anyhow I sprayed it on the corners of the carpets and he seems to avoid it now. Also I got this advice and am passing it on. Buy a medium/large tote with a lid put the lid on cut a hole in the side around middle height. Add a piece of carpet to the bottom and fill it with hay or poly fill(carefull it doesnt eat this) or wood chips. The rabbit is reacting to its natural borrowing instict and needs the opportunity to exersize this! I hope this helps!

[Rex]

Whenever I have left any type of diggy box out, he has peed in it. (Hay tunnel, box with papers, tub of hay, etc). His litterbox habits are perfect, except that he will pee in anything that resembles a litter box, including if there is a top on it. He doesn’t dig in his litterbox at all, ever. Even when it is super clean. He also hasn’t dug in the hay bin when I’ve left the top off, he just pees in it (luckily I get hay in bulk so no biggie to throw it out after that). I just don’t understand why this behavior surfaced all of a sudden at his age. He has never tried to dig up carpet before and had years of opportunity.

I think I will try rubbing/spraying something along the edge of the carpet to see if that works, but it is just so weird. He also has carpet in his cage (various rugs/leftover carpet) and he has never bothered that. He does chew on the bunny mats we get him. I think maybe he was just trying to get into the closet. He does not like closed doors, and there is a seam right there with the metal door runners (sliding door) and he probably felt the door give a little when he squeezed himself back there.

[Rex]

Any thoughts on how to provide a diggy box that he doesn’t turn into a litterbox?

[Rae]

Maybe you could make a digging box with a litter box inside it? My buns don’t dig very much so I don’t know how well that would work, but maybe sticking one of those corner litterboxes in a digging box would help him get the hint?

[mlg4491]

May I also recommend the tweezers and superglue method? Lol, my bun is so into carpet it’s ridiculous. As a renter, we decided we can no longer risk the damage and have all of our own carpets to go OVER the apartment carpet. Something about the berber, which is in every apartment ever, makes them want to pull it up. We got some clearance outdoor carpets from the hardware store and put them over. The buns don’t find those nearly as enticing and leave them alone. As for the diggy box, I’m not sure that’s exactly what I would give him. It sounds to me like it could be that what he really liked to do was tunnel behind the boxes, (you said it was a tight squeeze?) and dig at the end of the “tunnel.” So, instead of a box, give him a tunnel! I make ours just by leaning some cardboard against a wall, and placing an old phone book at the end to dig through.

[Rex]

The tunnel idea makes sense to me. He loves to squeeze into tight spaces when he can find one, much to my dismay. That’s usually where I keep my cords : ) I’m going to try the small tunnel with a phone book at the end idea.

[Stickerbunny]

My buns favorite diggy spot is a rolled up piece of industrial paper (the brown, crinkly stuff kind of like what they make paper bags out of), it’s huge and I roll it into a tunnel and they get into it and dig to their hearts content (has to be replaced every so often though cause they shred it lol). To keep mine from thinking a diggy box is a litter box, I usually put food in it, cause they don’t like to pee where their food is… but a lot of buns do.

[Author]

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