Knock Knock...Who's There...

It's 5am, and I am awoken to a crazy loud noise, that sounds like a jackhammer through my bedroom wall.

I jump up - it stops. I wait...a few seconds go by, and again, I hear the steady drilling again. I bang on the wall. It stops. A few days later, 5:30am, I awake to more drilling noise. Finally it dawns on me - it's a woodpecker. And he's pecking on my siding.

In some ways, I can't blame the woodpecker - my house is a playground for wood-loving animals and insects. I have board and batten siding, made from soft wood that woodpeckers apparently love to play with.

In my head, I'm thinking of the damage this little guy could potentially do, I immediately hit the internet for proposed solutions. In my mind, the answer was simple - just get rid of the bird just like any other - shoo it, shoot it, anything.

No, no...as I come to find out, woodpeckers are territorial and once they stake their claim (my house), that's it. It's do or die time...or not, because the woodpecker is a protected species. No b-b guns allowed.

I search and search through $250 plastic owls to mount on your siding, $500 netting to overlay on the house, $75 hawk scent to scare it away. And finally I come across a suggestion to use something metallic to discourage the pecker from pecking. I think and it strikes me - aluminum foil. It took me 3 seconds to run downstairs and begin hanging foil out all of my windows. For some added shock value, I took a ride to the local Dollar Tree and picked up a half-a-dozen mylar balloons and hung them out the windows on that side of the house.

Disco House was in full effect. My neighbors probably thought I was nuts. For two weeks I left them out, blowing in the wind. For two weeks, I listened and hoped I would not be awoken by the little guy.

And it stopped. Without shooting the little guy, without further damage to the house. Without really going nuts. Without spending tons of money on all of the stuff they sell on the internet that probably works just the same.

$6 later, I was free of the woodpecker. He still hangs out in my yard, but I just feed him some suet so he has something more appealing than my siding. And, best of all, I get a full night's sleep.