A woodpecker is ruining my quality of life…

Last year, a woodpecker was busily pecking away at a House in my neighborhood.  That didn’t surprise me too much, because this particular house was not the best ‘kept’ home in the area, and I just figured the woodpecker had found some great bugs in the wood.

Flash forward a few months, and I find myself being woken up to the sound of a woodpecker, and he was very busy pecking on the outside of our house- just above the wall where the bed is.  Great, so either woodpeckers can find food anywhere, or  my house now fell into the ‘unkempt’ category.

The end result of the woodpecker’s effort was a nice 4 inch in diameter hole in the stucco of our house.

We knew we wanted to replace the stucco with siding anyway, so we didn’t address the problem immediately.  BIG MISTAKE.

Guess what happens when you leave a four inch hole in the side of your house?

Birds will make a nest, that is what.  (This nest is located between the stucco  and the outside wall, the birds cannot get inside our house, thank God.)

We had animal control come out to see if they could somehow get these birds out.  Turns out the bird not only made a nest, but laid eggs.  Animal control said the bird was ‘protected’, so they couldn’t do anything to help us.  They said we needed to wait until the birds all grew up and moved out on their own.

That was pure hell.  Every morning at sunrise, all the babies started squawking endlessly, and you could hear mom taking off constantly to get food for her brood.  These birds were right by my head, so sleep was impossible.  It was like I had my own personal rooster.  However, after a few weeks, the whole bird family packed their bags and moved out.  Finally, I could sleep.

Guess what happens when one bird family moves out and you don’t instantly block up the hole?

A new Bird Family Moves in.  (In our defense, the hole is so high up that we do not have a ladder that reaches high enough to repair it ourselves.)  So, we are back to square one, except this time, it is just one bird that has taken up residence.  He seems pretty comfortable too, and I don’t think he will ever leave.

We are in the process of getting siding estimates, but it is a lengthy process.  I am so mad at myself for not calling someone out immediately to cover up that hole when we first saw it.  However, we never thought about birds nesting.  Then after they left, I didn’t want to cover it too soon in case there were still some birds in there and I didn’t want to trap them.  Unfortunately, I waited too long and I am now suffering from sleep deprivation.  (Why do birds have to chirp non-stop by the way?  Can’t they be more succinct??)

Better To Fix A Small Problem Than To Desperately Try To Fix A Large, Expensive Problem

In synopsis, if you notice even what you think is a small problem with your house, get it fixed immediately.  You just never know what one small issue will lead to.  Sure, you might have to pay a little money to have a minor repair fixed.  However, that is a lot better than having to pay a lot of money down the road.  Actually, in our case, the loss of sleep bothers me even more than the money aspect!

Have you ever had a small problem with your home snowball into a much bigger concern?