My neighborhood or subdivision in the suburbs of Chiang Mai has a ton of houses in it. I actually find it very easy to get lost in my own neighborhood because of the fact that most of the houses look the same and all the streets kind of blend in an indistinguishable manor. There have been many occasions where I had to get google maps out in order to find my own house despite the fact that I was only a few blocks from my front door.
Anyway
I started noticing during one of my wanders that about 30% of the houses have some amount of refilled plastic water bottles arranged around their house. Since no one actually drinks the tap water here, I determined they couldn't possibly be using the sun's heat to make some sort of beverage (my mom used to make "sun tea" in my youth) and it also was not every house.
I couldn't figure out by looking around why it is that anyone would do this and I also have never encountered this during my more-than-a-decade of living in the south of Thailand.
I asked my real estate agent why people do this and even she was a little bit unsure but eventually gave me an answer.
Do you think you can guess what this practice is all about? I already know but I'm curious if you think you can guess.
Nice one! What a puzzle!!
Can I guess?!
I think these bottles were put there by the cars’ owners. Once they park their cars, they just place bottles around the wheels of their cars! In this way, stray dogs will not come to pee at the wheels of the cars!!
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That is correct, you and @xrplover win. I guess it is effective. But I gotta ask which is uglier? A piece of dog poo that dries up and goes away in a day or a row of garbage in front of your house?
Thank you fir the answer. I guess people don’t want to have that smell on the tyres of their cars!
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George Carlin was right. We are here to make plastic.
Some stupid motherfuckers out there in thailand too.
They try to prevent cats and dogs peeing. 🐶🐺😎
That is correct. You and @kaminchan win
Awesome! Thanks! 🦄😎
Is it a religious offering or sth. like that?
But there is no little shrine hmmm
Oh maybe it's for the monks
Edit:
Ok the mother of my gf told us why there are these bottles and I never thought of that xD
To prevent that dogs pee against the fences/houses.
Does it really work?
I've seen people hang bags of water at their tables to ward off flies, so I'm going to guess it has something to do with keeping some kind of pest away.
i've always been curious about that bag of water and the flies thing. If it does work I am gonna get a bunch of bags of water... stat!
Very interesting. I am looking forward to hearing the answer. Though it looks like someone might have gotten it already in the comments. I am not sure I understand the logic of it. I don't really see how a water bottle can keep a dog from going to the bathroom anywhere. It seems to me when you go to pick it up, you would just end up with a pee covered water bottle.
i don't understand that logic in it either. I question whether or not it actually works. A lot of houses here seem to think it does.
Either an intruder alarm or some sort of folk practice?
Maybe easy and convenient watering of plants, though it seems excessive.
both good guesses but incorrect :)
A means of identifying their houses i guess and prevent them from getting lost
good guess but incorrect :)
I think the practice should be either keeping these bottles for strangers who are thirsty to find them and drink them, like a form of human empathy, or it could be that it's a spiritual phenomenon maybe to get the water purified enough to drink. I do think mostly when you get used to your house, you'll place something important to help you distinguish it from others
well the water that comes out of the taps in Thailand can be deadly if you drink it so that is not it. Good guess though!
Haha wow the water can be deadly? In my country here the tap water can be clean really. So what's the purpose?
i'm gonna wait a day and see if anyone can guess correctly. The water is not treated to make it drinkable. The country doesn't have the resources to accomplish that.
How about if I say the water is used to distinguish the houses in general? To tell which house from which
To promote health wellness through making sure the entire country is absolutely MOIST.
ha! I hate that word. Thais hate it even more because it means something quite vulgar.
Are you serious? I dunno if I can ever visit Thailand in that case. Moist is in my top tier of words, along with sodden, soggy and the classic turbo dickhead.
I think they would just giggle. It woudn't insult anyone :)
Maybe someday when I'm not broke I can venture over there for a few days and test it out. Worst that happens is that I'm probably beaten and forced to drink cobra whiskey until I black out. Which is actually a positive, probably.
Very good idea, I like it
Flies.