Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley's Lil Bitta Pod - 19th September 2026
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What weird lawn‑bottle myth are the hosts trying to explain?
From the Zim Podcast Network It's Flechborne and Haley's Little Bit Apart. Welcome to a little bit of pod. Now, producer Carwin, where were we the other day and there was a bottle of water and I said, oh, maybe someone had and it was it was it in the car?
Yeah, we were in the car and there was a a drink bottle of water. Yeah, but
and no, it was an old soft drink bottle and someone had put water in it and I was like, or maybe it was for the radiator, or maybe, and I said to Carwin, maybe someone has it for their lawn to stop the dogs. And she looked at me like
Oh dad's being senile, yeah. What do you mean lawn to stop the dog? Thank you, Haley.
You know, Vaughan. Yeah.
Do you know what it is? This
is like growing up in New Zealand in the eighties and nineties. Maybe he's got a water bottle a a big bottle full of water.
How did New Zealand gardeners supposedly use water‑filled bottles to stop dogs?
Half full. People put empty soft drink like Coke bottles. Plastic one point five or two point two five liters. They would they would uh wash them out, they'd put water, they'd fill them, and they left them on their front lawn because they believed it stopped dogs shitting on their lawn. There was some There was
some urban booms, booms and unfenced front lawns were littered with half full plastic soft drink bottles.
I've never
thought of this
ever in my life. It's m
it's it's m it was madness and it was some old wives' tale or s I don't know how it got out, whether it started as a
prank. Was it like physically? Like they think that the dogs can't walk past the water or whatever. But there was something
they they there was something that deterred the dogs. No one even knew what the story was.
Also, like side note, dog poes were a lot more whiter back in the day. I don't know why they I don't know what the dogs were eating in the nineties and eight.
Aesthetically I would rather have dog shit on my lawn do a plastic bottle.
What evidence exists that the bottle‑on‑the‑lawn story was a real urban legend?
Because it's low and it's kind of flat and it's just nature.
Did you Google this? Yeah, the myth was the widespread urban legend claims that dogs wouldn't defecate near water or the reflection of the sunlight scared them.
This
feels like some small town bullshit that it went that went viral in a way that we don't know how 'cause there were no computers or internet. No, it
would have been on some kind of like, I don't know, magazine style performing show or like a t was on a t a T V or in the newspaper. Or
it's like a ploy by big soft drink to buy more bottles. Yeah.
And having a use for the plastic bottles after you drink.
We're not land filling these. No.
And my memory was only for the clear ones. Yes, it wasn't the brown or the green. You
couldn't use a sprite. No, it had to be clear. Or an LMP.
Who popularised the myth on radio and TV in the late‑80s?
It had to be a sweeps. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you take the label.
So the spinoff did a story about this a few years ago in twenty twenty two. The spin off always has done a story about anything that's happened in this country.
We love that.
Um some comments on it. Uh my Polynesian family got pulled into this big time. Have some families in South Auckland had bottles on their lawn. My grandpa used to have them on the lawn till one day while staring out the window I saw a dog taking a shit right on the bottle. Yeah, yelled at the granddaddy shitting on the bottle. He yelled at the dog, then grabbed all the bottles off the lawn, um, placed them with uh he tipped out the water and he said, Nah, that's not a big thing.
Why do some people think the prank spread internationally before the internet?
Nah, that we're done with that shit. Nah, that we're done with that shit. How how
close was it like Minesweeper where you had to have a certain thing?
And it wasn't everyone, it was just the people that had heard this and I d it was so weird. I don't know.
What this is like the first I've ever heard of it. So apparently
the bog man who used to be on Maggie's Garden World. Yeah, yeah, climb past. He apparently perpetrated this rumour.
He said
it worked. And someone called Eon Scarrow. Eon Scarrow was a New Zealand gardening personality brought up.
Do you
think do you think they got together one night over a couple of beers and they're like, We'll we'll we'll start this.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What weird lawn‑bottle myth are the hosts trying to explain?
0:00–0:44
2
How did New Zealand gardeners supposedly use water‑filled bottles to stop dogs?
0:44–1:38
3
What evidence exists that the bottle‑on‑the‑lawn story was a real urban legend?
1:38–2:30
4
Who popularised the myth on radio and TV in the late‑80s?
2:30–3:01
5
Why do some people think the prank spread internationally before the internet?
3:01–3:45
6
What personal anecdotes do the hosts share about families using the bottles?
3:45–4:39
7
How did the 1989 radio prank actually unfold and what was the reaction?
4:39–5:12
8
What modern equivalents of the bottle trick are people trying today?
5:12–5:52
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from ZM's Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley
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