Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Uninvited Guests!!!!!



Here is a little background on this story: Right after Tyler and I moved into this house we were unpacking some things and I was looking at some curtains and I said to Tyler, "Doesn't that look like bird poop on the curtains?" I didn't really think it was bird poop. But as he looked closer he was finding more of it and it was flaking off of them just like bird poop. We began to wonder how in the world was there bird poop in our house! So kinda joking we text Josh and asked why there was bird poop on the curtains. His response, "Yeah sometimes birds get in the house. The last time it happened was about 6 months ago." What?! He said they didn't really know how they got in but they do. Fast forward about a month. I'm sitting in the toy room with Blake as he is playing and I hear loud thumping/banging in the kitchen. My first thought, someone broke into the house. So I very cautiously walk out to the kitchen. What do I see: A BIRD flying around the kitchen hitting the windows!! So I call Tyler and ask him what to do as this bird is flying over my head around our house! I got him into the play room and opened a window and he flew right out. It scared me but thankfully only one thing was damaged and there was no poop in the house! I told Josh that it happened and we got it figured out how they are getting in. Our furnace has a pipe going out the roof that doesn't have netting around it so they can get in the pipe and fall right into our furnace and they can walk right out the back.Here is the culprit. They can walk out the back onto the brick and be in the house. The pipe in the back is the one that goes out the roof.


Now, fast forward to yesterday. I'm at work all day at Homestead. Blake is at Aunt Jenn's. Tyler is at work in the morning, goes to a planter clinic over lunch then goes back and works all afternoon. We both get home from work at the same exact time. We get in the house and go straight to our bedroom to change because we were going to go to Lafayette and we wanted to get left in good time. We got changed and were walking through the house to leave and I hear an all too familiar thump! So I turn to look and see NOT ONE, BUT TWO BIRDS flying around in the toy room!!! Tyler got them out the same window I did the first time one was in the house. But how did we not hear these things the whole time we were changing?! We figured it must have been because we were talking and laughing with Blake and we were not disturbing them since we were not in the same room. Then we wondered how long they had been in here!? Neither of us came home all day! They could have gotten in right after we both left and had been flying around our house all day! We started looking for clues.....it did not take us long to figure out they poop A LOT and they must have been in here all day!! This morning as I am cleaning it up I am finding more and more poop!! I did not think to take pictures of most of it before I wiped it up but here is a few places I've found it.

Blake's high chair tray, a lot of it does not show up because it is the same color as the tray. The cup holder was solid poop!

The kitchen chairs. This is just one chair, I found poop on all 4 chairs :(

The kitchen table.

The back of Blake's high chair. Its on the green house, the elephants and on the seat part also.

They made sure it was multiple places on the kitchen table.

My kitchen window, right above my sink. I already had the sink cleaned up when I took pictures, but it was all over in that!!

The living room wall.

The couch. Last night before we went to Lafayette Tyler and I walked around the house cleaning it up off the floor and furniture. We missed some that I found this morning :)

A lamp. They must have sat on it somewhere to be in both of these places.

The candles on the lamp in the picture above.

On a heater in the toy room.

A shelf in the toy room.


The floor in front of the fridge.

On top the fridge. (Sorry about the dust, I now have a reason to clean it :)

The biggest mess was on the kitchen counter top. I cleaned all that off before I took pictures. There was a spot of poop about every 6 inches. I did not think it was too bad until I started cleaning it. Most of the poop blended in with the counter so I just could not see it until I started looking hard. We have 8 rooms on our main floor and I found evidence of the two very uninvited guests in 5 of those rooms. There was not poop in all of the rooms but there was knocked over or messed up decorations. Tyler and I both agreed we need to get the pipe fixed ASAP :) And until we do we are going to keep a tennis racket in the house somewhere. I am going to do my best and try to not let the next bird that comes in get out alive :) It has been starlings that have gotten in each time and I am going to start thinning their population one at a time! But hopefully we don't have any more uninvited guest before we get the pipe fixed! 

Anyone want to guess what I have been doing this morning other than updating the blog?! :)