A woodpecker has decided my house looked nice enough that it wanted to move in, so it’s started drilling a hole in my siding. I think it may have made it through the plywood underneath, as well, judging by the sound of it. I REALLY can’t afford new siding on my whole house at the moment, even if it needs it, but I can’t just throw up a piece of plywood and be done with it either, since I live in a townhome community and I’m sure my neighbors would all glare at me in my trashy glory if I did that. Being a first-time homeowner, I don’t really know what I should do, other than buy a ladder and take a look to see how much damage they’ve actually done. Is there anything I can do short of replacing all the siding on that wall to repair it?
Spend any amount of money necessary. If legal in your area, kill the little SOB. Plug the hole it’s making first (it’ll keep coming back until something is nesting in there if you don’t). Hang a flashy wind chime right there. Rig up a sounding box type thing away from your house, because, I seem to remember, the little piece of evil is calling the ladies and finds your siding to be nice and loud. ACT NOW! It’ll come back year after fraking year until you’re ready to violate several ordinances such as the migritory bird protection act and the no discharging of firearms withing city limits law and the no running outside in your underwear at 5:30AM screaming and throwing tennis balls…
The local state DNR can provide you with a list of legal ways to stop the damage. They sometomes provide permits to kill woodpecjers inflicting hous damage, when the other methods don’t work, that’s why I sugest your state’s DNR as a source of information. They’ll start you off with information to discourage damage, and later a less desirable way to deal with it.
Once there’s a hole that can be exploited by a woodpecker, killing the culprit is only going to be a temporary solution, because the next bird to happen along will take advantage of the hole started by the first.
I don’t have exactly the same problem, but I had something similar - squirrels chewed through the fascias on my roof timbers at the corners of the roof; once they’d done that, starlings enlarged the hole and started nesting in there each year. I screwed a metal plate over the hole (I waited until the nest was empty in winter) and they gave up and went elsewhere. You can always paint it to match the rest of the finish.
You could also ask your homeowners’ association if they have any suggestions. They may have some appearance rules that would make them grumble about you hanging mirrors etc. but if you point out the alternative is repeated holes in your siding, they may let that slide. A colleague of mine had one attack her condo last year; the siding was repaired… and it came right back and drilled another hole.
Oops, Mama Zappa’s links weren’t there when I started my response. Looks like they also do it to excavate a nesting site and to attract mates. I’d still make sure you don’t have a lunch buffet crawling under your siding, though.
Wow. We hear them all the time, but always out in the woods; never on our house. I had no idea they were such a nuisance! I’d think a tree would be much more attractive to them than a house.
The only thing I can really tell you, having had birds in my walls, is to wait it out. After the season’s over, you can plug up the hole. And it does work…we never had the problem again. And we suffered, too, as it had chicks and we heard them peeping day and night…but I still never ever would have killed them.
Then again I much prefer birds to any kind of animal. I’d prefer they not nest in m house but I wouldn’t kill them to kick them out!
They peck holes for many reasons, and they can easily cause thousands of dollars in damage. One decided to peck on the 25 foot steel tv tower last spring for about three weeks. I figure it was a territory or mating thing. I have 4 around the place and am lucky they have left the house alone.
Shame you didn’t kill the starlings. They are a pest bird imported from Europe that are pushing out a number of native bird species. Any chance I can get to kill one bird and save a dozen others, sign me up!
