Help …… my house is being eaten by woodpeckers …. the gable ends have 50 –60 holes in them the size of golf balls – two are larger than soft balls. How do you get rid of them? I’m also having trouble with boring bees … there could be a love triangle going on here. Anyone know how to get rid of both?
Can’t use a pellet gun or 410 shot gun as neighbors are always around ….. ?
Edited 11/5/2002 3:41:41 AM ET by HOMEBUILDER1
Replies
Tearoff your siding and replace with concrete board . Then wrap all your facsia in aluminum. Once you do this they will attack the neighbors house.
ANDYSZ2
I live in heavy woods in northern IL. I have had severe woodpecker problems. Because I don't like the siding that I have and it was very poorly maintained for 20 years, I am replacing all the cedar siding with fiber cement. Woodpeckers are looking for food, i.e. bugs. Get rid of the bugs and they won't peck. Malathion applied with something like a pump-up sprayer or with a garden hose inductor type sprayer will do a lot to cure the problem. Regular maintenance to keep the wood sealed is a good thing to do for many reasons and will help as well.
I'm with the Malathion. Been there and done that successfully. Clear Woodlife as a finish coating on the replaced wood seems to drive them off too. I'd think the peckers'd be gone to capistrano by now.
I can sympathize. In the last week one decided to ATTACK our log home....and this after I just finished putting stain on. It sickens me the damage that little.....pecker (as in woodpecker ;-) ) is doing. There are no bugs in our logs. I don't think that is the problem.
Unlike you, we can use a pellet gun so we bought a cheap one last week at Walmart. It is ready for action, but that little creep didn't show up on the weekend. He seems to know when we are at work.
I'm amazed at how quiet the pellet gun is. Are you sure you can't sneak a couple shots in before you neighbors know what's happening?
If nothing else, we're having a blast practicing our target shooting with that gun. Its too fun. We set up a target in the basement. Good entertainment for sure. Helps break up the monotony and stress of DIY homebuilding.
Oh, and then there was the packrat we had last month. It kept coming in and stealing things. That one we were able to trap live and release a few miles away in the forest.
I once rented a room in a house that had that problem. During the summer we'd be awakened at 4:30 every morning by little jackhammers right outside the window. My housemate' solution was a wrist-rocket, a kind of high powered slingshot. I don't think he every hit a bird, but it would scare them off for 3 minutes or so. Anyway, the birds got so used to being fired at that whenever they saw him appear, they'd flap away, only to come back as soon as he was inside. So the housemate started hiding behind a corner of the house, then he'd spin around quickly and fire, SWAT style.
The time he did that and put a ball bearing right through the casement window he'd left open, I nearly peed my pants.
I doubt if this is the cure to your problem, but when a woodpecker attacked the side of my house, (stucco) I got rid of him with a big, fake owl. Woodpeckers are not really common to this area, I have only seen a couple in the decades I've lived here(s.w.Idaho), but it only takes one to ruin a lot of hard work. I put that owl on a piece of 4x4 about 5 ft. off the ground and never saw the woodpecker again. I never figured it would work, but has for two years now.
I had one pecking on my metal gutters, an awful racket at 6 am...someone said they make the noise to attract a mate?? Anyhow, I got myself a power water pistol, honed my aiming skills, snuck around the corner and caught em good a few times, he finally gave up or else found a mate...I also heard they can sense bugs residing in the wood, dunno know how true. Good luck! Paul
>someone said they make the noise to attract a mate
That's what I was told, also. So the solution is to import a female woodpecker.
I had them attacking my concrete dome this year! Never made a hole in the synthetic stucco outer coating though. I was hoping they'd break a beak for all the times they woke me up. After a coupla weeks they just stopped.
Someone suggested you use the AOL Cd's and hang them in the area. That coam from Assibam elsewhere in this forum.
Edited 11/6/2002 5:07:56 PM ET by Booch