Arkansas Blog

Max, here's a link for wildlife control from North Carolina Extension Service. It's full of lots of info for dealing with critters of all shapes and sizes. Good luck with the wood peckers. http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/nreos/wild/pdf/wildlife/WOODPECKERS.PDF

Here's the link for the main page for all sorts of wildlife. This is a good one to keep handy under your favorites.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/nreos/wild/wildlife/wdc/index.html

Steel siding.

That was all that would stop squirels once they found they liked my attic.

We have a brick house but the eaves and overhang are wood. Squirels eat through it and then through the repairs.

Well, Max, back in his day, Daddy cut the top and bottom out of a metal quart oil can, split it and nailed and tarred it to the leaking barn roof instead of buying a bundle of shingles. Guess it would work on siding too. Problem is, you cain't get any of them metal cans anymore. Maybe a tomato juice can?

The only non-game birds that are legal to shoot are house sparrows and starlings, so you can leave your pellet gun in its rack. You might try one of those fake owls, (although a woodpecker with any sense should know that an owl wouldn't be out in the daytime very much). A netting of some sort might work, if you wouldn't mind your house looking like a M*A*S*H. Are your neighbors snobs?

Unless these peckers are "recreational users," I'd say you may have a BIGGER problem than them: namely the critters they're after!! Unless the peckers in Hillcrest are just too well-fed and bored (no pun)?
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>>We have a brick house but the eaves and overhang are wood. Squirels eat through it and then through the repairs.<<

Cit1 and anyone else I suddenly had an infestation of squirrels in a few attics several years ago.

I hunted around and called for a solution. The critters had eaten thru the eves and then pulled the mesh wire from the attic vents.

MOTH BALLS. Don't over-do it. Just a dozen is usually enough in an average sized home-1800-2000 sq ft. I used a large rubber band to shoot the moth balls into the low corners of the attic where most were nesting. If your attic to interior ceiling is not fairly well insulated I don't advise this.
Fumes can seep into the house. But I guarantee moth balls will drive squirrels away. Moth balls also prevented crows from flipping open garbage cans and making a helluva a mess.

That was always my mother's theory about Publishers Clearinghouse -- Somebody has to win it, and it might as well be her. Sadly, it never was.

will mothballs keep away snakes? I like to leave my patio door open for the dogs, but if a snake ever got in here youo would hear me scream from one corner of the state to the other. Dear Lord.

If you're going to put mothballs in your attic, I have a suggestion: Go buy some good quality -- as in Aromatique, not Walmart brand -- potpourri and maybe a couple of candles. You get tired of that mothball smell really fast, but if you have to use them, it's worth spending the money on the anti-fume remedy too. The mothballs are plenty cheap, and they do work, so it's worth the extra effort and expense. I love your rubber-band idea.

I was thinking the same thing, Larry. Maybe the woodpeckers are doing you a favor, by pointing out where you have bugs in your siding that you should do something about.

I used to have trouble with birds flying onto my front porch. I got some black thread (so the birds couldn't see it) and strung it "spider web fashion" all around the porch. The birds would fly into it without seeing it. It ran them off. You can do the same thing to tomato plants that are getting attacked by birds.

If Max wins $300 million, the last place he'll be patching woodpecker holes is Little Rock. In France, maybe. We would have seen the last of the Maximizer. I volunteer now to be his France-woodpecker-stopper-upper. He shouldn't be on a ladder, high up his chateau.

"I'm talking about the $300 million I'm going to win playing Powerball. The odds are one in 195 million, but, hey, somebody has to be the one.

If the odds are only 195 million to one, how can a one dollar ticket pay Pass A Lay and crew, provide scholarships, and pay the winner $300 million. Is it really the other way around? With the $105 million used for scholarships and operations?