Nature can be a thing of wonder and beauty – from a safe distance. But when wildlife gets up close and personal with our home territory, it can be a nuisance. For some people, it’s not uncommon to encounter woodpeckers knocking at their door – or at least, pecking at their siding.
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Why woodpeckers peck at a house
Woodpeckers have a specific goals in mind when they begin going after your house but a big one is this: food! While a taste of wood siding won’t do much to satisfy their hunger, bees, ants or other insects that may lie below the siding will do just fine!
In my home, we found a bees nest between the shutter and the siding. This was just above where the woodpecker began his pecking misadventure. Part of the solution is to remove those other food sources by exterminating the bees, in our case.
In addition, you might consider providing an alternative food source, like a suet feeder which gives the woodpeckers a damage free way to get their daily dose of nutrition.
Aside from searching for food, woodpeckers will drill holes to buid nests or to mark their territory. Regardless, the methods outlined below wil encourage them to choose another location.
What kind of siding will woodpeckers damage?
With woodpeckers slowly but surely being pushed out of their natural environments, your home may become a welcome place to carve out a spot to nest or hunt for yummy insects.
With the obvious exception of brick, just about all forms of siding – including wood shingles, shakes or clapboard, synthetic stucco and even vinyl over wood – can be attractive to woodpeckers.
One other type of siding that woodpeckers cannot attack is HardiPlank. This is a cement based shingle that is extremely hard and very durable.
How big do woodpeckers get?
Woodpeckers can be 7 to 15 inches tall and have short, strong legs and sharp-clawed toes, enabling them to be quite comfortable as they peck away at your house.
Despite their smaller size, they can do plenty of damage!
How to Deter a Woodpecker Attack?
Read Transcript
LESLIE: Susan in Pennsylvania is dealing with a woodpecker, except it’s not Woody the Woodpecker giving her the heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.
Although he might be, as he’s making holes in your house. What’s going on, Susan?
SUSAN: Well, thank you very much for taking my call. I’ve learned so much from listening to this show. I live with my daughter and son-in-law and there is a woodpecker every morning. He comes and has breakfast, compliments of our home. And my son-in-law has looked and there is damage and of course, he’s going to have that taken care of. But we’re trying to find out how do we deter this woodpecker from coming back or just picking another spot.
TOM: Does he generally like to pick the same kind of spot?
SUSAN: Yeah. He seems to be right over top of their bedroom, right in that area on the side of the house.
TOM: Oh, great. So it can wake them up in the morning.
Alright. So, let me give you a couple of things that you can try that are really easy. One of which is to get some tin pie plates, like the aluminum pie plates. Hang them from fishing line or sort of a thin cord or something so that they sort of dangle in the area where the woodpecker likes to hang out. Because they really are annoying to the birds and they don’t like to see their reflection; they think there’s other birds around. And sometimes, that’s all it takes to make them go away.
Another thing that you can do is you could take strips of a plastic Hefty bag, cut it into 3-inch strips so that it kind of blows around in the breeze. That kind of has the freak-out effect. And neither of these, obviously, hurt the birds. You don’t want to leave them on for very long but they do work pretty well at keeping the woodpeckers away from your house. And maybe they’ll just decide that, you know, your neighbor’s house is a better place to be.
SUSAN: Oh. OK. That’s fantastic. Yes.
LESLIE: I had a woodpecker put a pretty nice-size hole in the soffit material of my home. And I was re-siding and changing out all of the soffit material for one of those AZEK type of extruded PVC product that looks like wood but obviously, the woodpecker is not going to eat it. So I didn’t bother repairing this pretty nice-size hole that the woodpecker made. And in the process of the work happening, before that soffit and fascia material came off, a whole family of squirrels moved in.
SUSAN: Oh, aren’t you lucky? Well, thank you very much.
Humane ways to stop woodpeckers from damaging your home
Fortunately, there are a number of humane, homemade control methods that can encourage woodpeckers to take their pecking behavior elsewhere.
Add reflective objects
- Take two or three 12-inch-diameter aluminum pie plates or old CD’s and hang them in the area of woodpecker infestation. Allow them to blow freely in the wind.
- Mirrors, like the inexpensive 9-inch-diameter round magnifying shaving style, are also effective. Secure one or two near the woodpecker’s favored drilling spot.
Both of these methods frighten woodpeckers away as the reflections fool them into thinking that predators are near.
Add black plastic streamers
- Another effective method is to cut strips of black plastic (such as from a large plastic garbage bag) about 2 inches wide and 2 to 3 feet long.
- Tack the strips around the infestation zone, again letting them blow freely in the breeze.
Woodpeckers will steer clear of these fluttering streamers for fear of getting tangled and head off to find a new home elsewhere. Also while they’re not very attractive, you wont need to leave them up indefinitely.
After you fix the hole, I’d leave them up for another 3 or 4 weeks. By then, your one-bird demolition crew should be on to a new construction site hopefully well away from your home!
Once the woodpeckers clear out, you can remove the woodpecker-proofing decorations and store them in case of any future visits. Then be sure to repair any holes they’ve created or seal up any voids they could possibly return to nest in.
How to repair siding damaged by woodpeckers
Read Transcript
LESLIE: Marvin in Illinois, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
MARVIN: I have a house with cedar siding.
TOM: OK.
MARVIN: And the woodpecker – now deceased, unfortunately – but he pecked two holes about an inch-and-a-half in diameter in the side of my house. And I was wondering if they make a product that I can put in that would fill in those holes and it would be sandable and I can blend it in and then stain it the same color as the original.
TOM: Well, inch-and-a-half holes are pretty darn big. What kind of cedar siding is this? Is this clapboard or cedar shingles? Shakes? What have you got?
MARVIN: It’s clapboard.
TOM: Clapboard? Was he courteous enough to make both holes on the same piece?
MARVIN: No. No.
TOM: No, huh? Because to try to fill in an inch-and-a-half gap like that, it’s going to look like a patch. I presume this is stained and not painted?
MARVIN: Oh, it’s a colored stain. (inaudible at 0:13:30).
TOM: It’s a colored stain, yeah.
MARVIN: So it’s not a clear cedar.
TOM: Right, yeah.
MARVIN: It’s more painted than stained.
TOM: Right. The best thing to do here is to replace the piece of siding and it’s not that hard to do. What I would do is I would gently pry up the piece above it and then try to cut out the bad pieces and then put a new piece in.
The key here, though, is not to put a small piece in but to put, actually, a sizeable piece; like I’m talking like a 4-foot-long piece in. And if you replace both of those pieces of siding, then you sand it and prime it and restain it, it’ll be invisible. If you try to fill that in – because an inch-and-a-half hole is actually way too big to use, even if you use an epoxy wood filler. Or there’s different products that are used for rotted wood and things like that that work and sort of fill it in like a cavity.
I mean even if you use those products, I think no matter what, you’re still going to see it. So I would rather see you replace it, because it’s just not that hard of a project to do. And this way, it’ll be done once, done right and you won’t have to think about it every time you stare up there and remember that woodpecker; respectfully remember that woodpecker, of course, that is now – that’s right – that has now gone to the big tree in the sky, so to speak.
LESLIE: May he rest in peace.
MARVIN: OK. Well I appreciate your expertise and saved me some time.
TOM: You’re welcome.
MARVIN: Thank you very much.
Conclusion
These humane tips for woodpecker control will help you defend your home from these unwanted visitors and send woodpeckers off in search of someplace more hospitable!
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