doll hands and splinters
Ensure your fence has no iron (or even steel) in it; consider nails, screws, hinges. If you don't have a fence around your house, build one---but do it right. Use wood repurposed from some other structure(s) or even furniture and begin on a Thursday. If you don't finish before midnight, leave it for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; resume on Monday. To finish Monday is best. Take a splinter off each piece of wood in the fence, and set the splinters aside. Take four dolls. These dolls have to be plastic, porcelain, rubber, or wood; you can't use cloth. Make sure each doll is dressed---they can't even be barefoot. Tuck a shiny coin into the clothing of each, wherever it will fit, and cut off their hands. (Note: the coins have to be the same denomination; it doesn't do to show favouritism.) Set the hands aside. Place the dolls under the floorboards of the lowest level of your home, one at each corner of the building. If your home is strangely-shaped, you might need more dolls. Put the doll hands and the splinters into a container with some teeth. Keep this container in a windowless room in your home. So long as the container is where it should be, anyone who tries to force entry into your home---or successfully forces entry into your home---will get hurt somehow. Nobody's been hurt so badly they couldn't limp away, but sprains and scrapes and blood left behind is still something.











