*No one has broken into our house, and we are all safe, but the title caught your interest, huh? :)*
I've had a fear for the past few months that is fairly irrational but was made more rational when I read about it actually happening in Japan. The fear is this: someone is living in our basement, eating our food storage and hiding when we go downstairs. I honestly went through a period where I would make extra noise when I was going down the stairs just so this person could hide; if they didn't want to bother me, I didn't want to bother them. :) Before Brett left on his last camping trip, I made him go down to the basement with me and look in all the possible hiding places. No one was there, and I've actually been able to overcome the fear since then.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I was putting in a load of laundry before Emmy woke up so the house was unusually quiet. As I was loading the washing machine, I heard a scratching, scuffling noise inside the wall. I froze, certain that there was a mouse in the wall and absolutely petrified by the possibility. I called my mom and she brought a mouse trap when she came over later that morning. But as I described the sound and where it was, we both began to think it was just a bird that had flown into our dryer vent. I was sad about the poor, dead bird in the vent and concerned about how exactly we'd get it out, but mostly I was just relieved that we didn't have a mouse.
So a few days ago when I heard more noises, I was sick. Apparently our intruder was back. I talked to Brett about needing to set the trap (which we never got around to doing). I went through our food storage, trying to find evidence of a mouse. I was very grateful that everything was still intact, and I moved things in an attempt to mouse-proof.
Then this morning the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. A friend came to our front door, and as I opened it, a bird flew away, startling her. "Did that bird just come from the dryer vent?" I asked. "Um, yeah, I think it did," she replied. And then we looked over to see little twigs sticking out of the hole.
NUTS! Some silly birds are building a nest in our dryer vent!!! Not quite as freaky as a person living in my house, but pretty darn annoying. So I called Animal Control to see if they would come take care of it; they apparently don't to anything with birds. What do I do? Let my dryer provide a nice incubator for the eggs (hoping I don't cook them)? Do we try to clear it out? I don't want to just cover the hole and leave the next in there. That's just mean to the poor mama bird, and as a mama myself, that's just not okay. Anybody have any ideas? Dealt with this problem before? Help!
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5 comments:
We have birds on our front porch. Usually we just tear down their nest & they move. But, this year they were persistent, and now the mama has laid her eggs and we don't want to be cruel. Jon says birds will desert their babies if a human touches the nest (but I'm not sure if that's true). So, maybe look to see if the eggs are there yet, and if not, just take it down. Good luck!
We took down the nest (with out eggs in it) then put a light mesh covering over the vent. We have to clean it more, but it prevents birds from building a home there.
We haven't had birds build nests in our home, but we had 4 birds find their way into our first apartment. It was horrible!
We have a problem at my work with birds building nests. We were told we could keep taking them down as long as there were no eggs. At some point you'll have to get the nest out, it may be a fire hazard being in the vent long term. Good luck!
Yeah, I'd definitely worry about the fire hazard. It's true that you can't touch the eggs or the mama bird will desert them, but you also can't let your house catch on fire with *your* baby inside. I'd say move the nest and eggs to a birdhouse and hope that the mama can get over it. Maybe gloves will help?
How fun?!! You can buy a lip that goes over your drier vent that only lifts when the hot air is coming out and not enough to welcome critters inside. Good LUCK!
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