Over 20 years of pest control experience can be attributed to Nick Castro, owner of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control in California.
During his career, he has seen many bizarre things, but recently he came across one that stunned him.
An acorn-storing woodpecker was causing damage to a house’s siding by storing it in holes and creating holes in the siding. Castro was called to the scene to deal with the problem.
To remove the acorns, he cut into the wall but was faced with an endless stream.
“They just kept coming and coming, non-stop,” Castro explained.
“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 around the house, but the acorns kept spilling out. Eight large rubbish bags were filled with 700 pounds of acorns.
The pest controller said the bird had stored acorns all over the house, creating clear woodpecker holes.
“You would think this bird had stored food all over,” Castro explained.
“The bird had completely destroyed the exterior of the house with the holes it had made. Acorns were stored all over siding and trim.”
According to Castro, the bird was “crazy.”
“We actually saw him there when we were there putting more in the holes he created,” he recalled.
The bird had put acorns through the chimney stack after making hundreds of holes in the wood siding surrounding it, then came through the attic ventilation ports.
“Acorns were piled from the lower floor to about 20 feet up into the attic,” Castro recalled.
According to Nick’s Extreme Pest Control, “All animals are handled humanely and never euthanized,” and this case was no exception.
Rather than removing the woodpecker, the homeowners simply patched the holes outside.
New vinyl siding was intended to encourage the bird, which was hard at work finding acorns, to find a new place to store its food.
“I never saw anything like that before,” Castro remarked.