We’ve all had some kinda run in with a pesky animal that hangs around your house.
You’ve got feral hogs tearing up yards in Texas, raccoons getting into trash cans left and right in South Carolina, and even moose fighting in driveways in Colorado. Anywhere you go, you’re gonna have some kinda run in like this.
However, sometimes it’s the much smaller creatures you have to keep an eye out for, because they can quietly do a ton of damage to your home without you even knowing.
This was the case for one California family.
According to the New York Post, Nick Castro, owner of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, was called to a home to deal with a woodpecker that was storing acorns in the siding of the house.
But, when he cut into the walls to remove the acorns, he realized the woodpecker did way more than just store a few…
He recalled:
“They just kept coming and coming, non-stop. Acorns were thought to be only about a quarter of the way up the wall. Turned out, they were piled high up to the attic of the house.”
Castro opened more holes in the walls, and the massive pile of acorns ended up weighing up to 700 pounds, filling up eight bags:
“You would think this bird had stored food all over. The bird had completely destroyed the exterior of the house with the holes it had made. Acorns were stored all over siding and trim.
We actually saw him (the woodpecker) there when we were there putting more in the holes he created.”
After the woodpecker had already made a ton of holes in the siding of the house, it began storing acorns in the chimney stack, and then through the attic ventilation port holes:
“Acorns were piled from the lower floor to about 20 feet up into the attic.”
Castro then said the bird was humanely treated, and wasn’t euthanized.
After replacing the siding with new vinyl siding, he hopes that the woodpecker will be encouraged to find a new place to store food.
Nevertheless, this was the wildest scene he’d ever encountered since he got into pest control:
“I never saw anything like that before.”
