My experience is similar to lucille's in Houston. Our cat is indoors, but we have visiting cats that like my back yard - when their owners are away. I've come to tolerate them, mainly because we do have a lot of critters that visit from a canyon and wild-life preserve back of the house. But - about the water wand - I bought one some years ago to deter the raccoons and skunks from digging. Then I covered my vegetable planter boxes with cages, so the water wand fell in disuse - until last summer. The apricots were so plentiful - but the coons were climbing the trees, breaking off branches. I dusted off the Scarecrow water wand and set it up next to the trees. That stopped the critters from breaking down the tree branches. We managed to harvest a fairly decent crop. You need to be sure that the battery is working OK. I put it away and may try it again this summer. Perhaps, if used regularly, the critters would ignore it, but it worked Ok this particular time. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

I have one I made up with a motion sensor for an outdoor light wired to an outlet. A 12-volt adaptor wired to an irrigation solenoid is plugged into that. Used it to keep the cats out of patches of lawn I was re-seeding. I mounted it all on a wood stake (except the sprinkler). Both the input and output for the solenoid are set up for garden hose. The output hose is about 10ft for easy positioning. You can put most any kind of sprinkler you want at the far end. I just use the ones that you can screw onto a hose end and have a stake on them. The motion sensor handles the timing (I set it for just a minute) and most of them have a switch to let it operate 24 hours or just when it's dark. If you are going after raccoons and the like, you could also plug in a spotlight... Hope this helps

@toriat -- We have several outdoor md (motion detector) lights. I don't understand jrb451's first sentence, but after that, right on. These lamps have a few modes, and like many electrical devices with various options, any button, toggle, or switch (in order to save space and cost) work in various, multiple ways. The lamp and MD unit itself will usually have adjustments for "sensitivity" to light (you want it to come on at dusk-like low light or only darkness) and to motion sensitivity. Too sensitive and it might come on every time an insect flies past. You can also, at the lamp MD unit select for how long the lamp stays ON (2 mins., 5 mins.) and there is a TEST mode that is used for when you want to adjust the position of the sensor. A person can put TEST mode on, and walk around and see how the sensor works at whatever angles of approach (light will come on only momentarily). On the inside of the dwelling, the MD light is connected to an on off switch, and this also has various MODES. Turn the switch ON (say, if only one light switch, in the UP position. This turns the MD Light ON. ON in this scenario means that the MD sensor is ON. Usually the light comes on, then goes OFF until motion is detected. Then the lamp stays on for whatever time has been selected on the unit, or stays on if there is continued motion (say a person, perhaps you, walking around outside). For our front step lights, we leave it on MD mode. However, if I want to leave the lights on for arriving company, I can override the MD sensor, and have the lights STAY ON. Light products differ so you can read a set of directions (online) for your lamp, or experiment to figure out how it works. For our lights, it goes like this to take it out of MD mode and put it into STAY ON mode: flip the switch off, then switch on again within 5 seconds. Of course, flipping the switch DOWN or OFF results is NO LIGHT coming on. You may want it like this for the upcoming meteor showers ;) The best MD units (most nowadays) RE-SET after a power outage or interruption. We had an older set that would stay ON after a power bump. Expensive if you have incandescent bulbs and don't catch it. We replaced that unit. WHY is it that these units sometimes fail? I've experience with at least two reasons. a) The UV light and weather can wear out some of the parts. That happened to our favorite 15 year old Journeyman set. I loved that floodlight unit. b) The plastic lens of the MD sensor seems to get either cloudy with UV damage, or dusty. One of our lights (14 yr old or more) is misbehavin' because of this sort of aging. I don't think there's a way to get behind the MD plastic to clean it. c) The Light Sensor (like a little eye) can get dirty, dusty, or UV damaged and doesn't read the light level correctly. One of our older lights comes on in broad daylight. So, there you go. Nothing lasts forever, especially if out in the weather. I hope this helps, and if not, there's lots of info online about MD sensing lighting. They are great devices and some of our floodlights coming on at 2 AM in February gave me a heads up on a beautiful visiting coyote searching the snow for mice or rodents.

Hello Ahreno, You mentioned that budget is an issue (as it is for most of us). Is there a reason that you want to have so many pairs of lights? Maybe in some places a single light is enough and would allow you to save some money. Many companies offer collections so you can purchase larger or smaller lights based on the location. The two styles of lights you suggest look very contemporary. Will this contemporary look be the best for your home’s style, or might a transitional style work and not look dated in 10 years? Be sure to think about where switches will be placed. Will you need to cross an outdoor space to get from the garage into the house? If so, be sure you have a switch at both the garage and inside the back door. Useful options for lighting is motion sensors and dusk to dawn settings so you can set and forget turning them on and off daily. This is especially nice if you want to light the front and maybe a rear entrance to the property. Good luck - all the decisions can be overwhelming, and the choices too!