Burlington Inventor Creates Oscarnet to Keep Critters Out!

There is an innovative new product hitting the GTA market mid July called Oscarnet.

 George  Bogojevic, a resident of Burlington,Ontario, is the inventor of the OSCARNET, the One Step Can-Net Avoiding (Annoying) Raccoons. He came up with the concept after moving into a new subdivision bordering on Bronte Creek Provincial Park and found there were major issues with raccoons tampering with his and his neighbours' garbage cans and leaving a trail of garbage to clean up.

One night while George was working on his son’s go-kart, his mother-in-law called out to him wondering why there was a loud racket coming from their backyard. The culprit was a family of raccoons who were fighting over the glorious content of a knocked over garbage can. George tried many things over the next couple of months to keep the critters from feasting on his garbage; bins with latches, bricks on top of the bins, bungee cords attached to the handles, etc., but nothing worked, the critters were always one step ahead. The would jump on the bins and knocked over allowing them to open up the garbage cans enjoy the feast. Cleaning up the mess in the morning before heading to work became a real annoying and time consuming problem. George was determined to find a way to stop them from opening up the garbage cans.

One evening an idea came to George as he eyed some old netting in his garage. “ I was fed up of cleaning up garbage left behind by the raccoons when some old netting happen to catch my eye, suddenly a light bulb went off!. I quickly sewed a special band around the bottom, pulled it together over the rim, and tried it out. The next morning I was amazed to find my garbage bin 12 feet away from where I had left it, but totally intact! The Raccoons could not break through the net!.” Hoping this wasn’t a fluke, he soon tested it out over the next couple of months, even tempting the critters with delicacies, the netting worked!. “It got to the point where they wouldn’t touch the bins with the netting because knew they just couldn’t break in.”

After sketching a few prototype designs, and testing out a few variations, he was ready to share his concept. “I spoke with my wife about this solution and we figured this might be something that would interest other people with the same problem”. After we tested it out with our neighbours and friends, we had found it was a huge success. We then decided it was time to test it on the consumer market.  George contacted some friends in the Prototyping business and have started a partnership.

The final product, the OSCARNET, is easy to install and remove. It has been adapted to fit a wide variety of garbage containers (plastic, metal, wood). Its durable construction and materials have been designed to withstand our Canadian climate and is not affected by extreme temperatures or weather under normal use.

The partners have started a joint venture called Oscarnet Inc. and Oscarnets are now being manufactured. Their next venture will be manufacturing similar prototypes to accommodate Blue and Black Bins.

Oscarnet will be available to purchase from an Online Store July28 , 2008 through their Website. It will also be sold in the Toronto Area Lowes Stores, September 1, 2008. For more details on Oscarnet, go to www.oscarnet.ca.