The Woodpecker War

My neighbor has a woodpecker problem, and I’m sorry but I think it’s so funny.  Not the problem itself, but the way he deals with it.  If my memory serves me correct, it’s been going back and forth for about two years now, but it might not have been quite that long. I know we’ve had a woodpecker in the neighborhood for much longer than that, you can almost always hear it drilling away at neighboring trees, he drilled a hole in my siding once but that was the only issue I’ve ever had with him.  But Tom (my neighbor) definitely has a serious problem.

For a little background, Tom is a single dad which in of itself isn’t something that you see every day; but his access to toys and his lack of sleep make him a force to be reckoned with.  His woodpecker problem started, like I said, about two years ago; and at first Tom tried all of the usual steps.  I saw him hang up reflectors, he bought some weird repellant to spray where the woodpecker was drilling, and when he could he patched up the holes.  You could clearly see that he was trying to reasonably get rid of the woodpecker, but after a year he had to install a metal repair trim because there was so much damage, and even after that the woodpecker came back!  I guess after that it was game on.

The yelling was the first thing, the woodpecker will drill at this little tinted window in Tom’s bedroom but when he opens it, it flies away.  So now when he opens it, he’ll yell little obscenities out at the bird.  Another thing (my personal favorite) that I’ve seen him do is shoot at the bird with his son’s Nerf gun; I’ve never seen him hit closer than 6 inches to the woodpecker but you have to appreciate the effort.  Recently I’ve watched him put out some of his kids’ little green army men up in the window seals and set up his daughter’s sound activated Robo-dog on the deck, along with a few other childish ploys.  It is the craziest thing to watch and I’m excited to see what he comes up with next!

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