titusnowl | (no subject)

(no subject)

There is a woodpecker who comes and bothers me a-pecking at the wall of my bedroom every damn morning at the ass-crack of dawn and doesn't freaking give up until 9 or 10. I can't get any rest: I am awaked at the first frantic pounding next to my head, and just as I drift back away it is repeated. It continues at odd intervals until I am ready to kill myself.

How does one discourage a woodpecker?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Y'know, if the woodpecker is actually pecking on the wall then that suggests that there is an insect infestation in your wall. You might want to check.

Woodpeckers detect insects within wood with great accuracy. They peck to get at them.

That's only partially true. They do find insects in trees and walls and obviously, they peck to get at them, but their hammering is an instinct which also marks their territory. This woodpecker may have his nest nearby and is hammering on the house to announce to all the other woodpeckers to give his crib a wide berth.

As far as discouraging him, Jeffie, even though it's incredibly tacky, shiny moving objects in the vicinity of his pecking area can discourage them. Tin pie plates hung up so they move in the wind and catch the sunlight can be effective, though ugly. Other pinwheels and whirligigs can do the same thing. The drawback is you have these idiotic geegaws on the side of your house. But I'm told they work.

Along with shiney moving stuff, pellet guns discourage the crap outta woodpeckers. Not actually the guns, but the pellets. And not just the pellets when they sit there on the back porch. When the pellets go whizzing, that's when the woodpeckers stop pecking.

I'll call my landlord Thursday morning and inform them that they might want to have a guy check, I suppose. I'd have to call 'em to get permission to hang shiny gewgaws there, anyway: it's a second-story apartment and the wall is unreachable except by ladder or wing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only