Knock-knock... Who's There?

Domestic bliss. As a stay-at-home-mom-turned-stay-at-home-wife, I love having the house to myself during the day. I do some work. I do less-than-sufficient housework. I blop a lot (blog hop). I spend endless hours on Facebook, and I am far too easily distracted by anything having to do with Bill Maher. I love my life.

With my happy lifestyle, I only grudgingly give up any of my time to anything other than what I want to do.

For example, I never answer the door unless I know who it is and am expecting that person. If it is a delivery, such as from UPS or FedEx, I wait until the driver is gone before I collect the package. If it's a door-to-door salesperson, I will not budge. Jordan never has friends come over without calling first, so I'm safe there. Suffice it to say, if I am not expecting you, you will end up standing there forever and ever because I refuse to answer the door.

I also never answer the phone unless I feel that there's something important involved. If someone really wants to reach me, they should chat, as nature intended. If it's a particularly long discussion, feel free to use e-mail. I am online all the time and will generally respond to an e-mail within five minutes. Phone calls are too sudden and I am horrible at speaking. I prefer to spend time gathering my ideas, writing, reading, editing, rewriting, and rereading something before allowing my audience to see it. Phone calls don't allow this convenience. Things can get out of hand so quickly on the phone. Or you end up talking to someone you didn't want to talk to in the first place. I feel that the world would be better off had Alex Bell and his creativity not existed. 

I know, my life is so exotic and important that I choose to ignore people. Nice, huh? But I digress.

Enter my nemesis. Ever since we moved into our house, I have been plagued by a hammering noise. For the first few months, I assumed that we had a neighbor who was involved in construction. Or carpentry. Or just some home repairs. But this hammering noise continued all day long for months. I would look out various windows, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. It was fairly loud, leading me to believe that I should be able to see the culprit easily from at least one window in the house. Alas, it was not to be. Not once in my furtive glances did I spy the evil hammer-wielder.

However, I was able to discern that the hammering noise was louder at the back of the house, so I focused my attention and energy there. I would sit outside on the patio, waiting to hear the hammering noise. It would never happen when I was outside. I thought that maybe we had an overly courteous hammering neighbor, who would simply stop their work while I was outside, as I appeared to be enjoying a lovely day but was in reality circumspectly attempting to track down the evil-doer. When I'd retreat back inside, the hammering would start up again within five minutes. I was coming unglued.

The hammering would sometimes occur when Jeff or Jordan were there, but they never seemed to mind. Maybe it sounded like the slight ticking of a clock to them. To me, it was like Big Ben chiming in my head. I never could understand their dismissal of the sound. Sure, they heard it, which was wonderful news to me, indicating I hadn't completely lost it. But it just didn't phase and haunt them as it did me.

I gave up on trying to find the source of the hammering. I distracted myself by trying to watch TV in the middle of the day, with the sound really loud. The shows were entertaining, but that hammering just continued. I tried listening to music with headphones. Fun music, but my ears easily get tired of wearing headphones and I have to take them off. More hammering. We got aquatic turtles, in a tank, with loud water. The splashing water just added to my frustration rather than eliminated it.

The hammering continued on and on.

I did discover that since the sound stopped when I was outside, the culprit was sensitive to sound or movement. So, I got in the habit of making noise when I'd hear the hammering start up. I'd run to the back door and open it as loud as I could (sliding doors don't make much noise, but I tried). Or I'd just walk outside. Or I'd go to Jordan's bedroom window and attempt to make a loud noise by opening and closing it (again, not as loud as I'd hoped). But usually the noise did the trick and I would have some peace and quiet for about 15 minutes before I had to go make more noise.

Then, after living in our house for about a year, I finally managed to uncover my suspect: in the course of making noise one day, a woodpecker flew away from the house. Apparently Woody perches on an exterior vent to the attic, tirelessly breaking into our house. He never submitted an application for rent. He doesn't take the trash out. He doesn't pitch in to help pay for groceries. He's like a friend your child brings home who mooches off of you until you kick him out. His "music" keeps my nerves ragged, but there he was, squatting in my house. And not merely squatting. As far as I know, the typical squatter doesn't want you to know they are there. Woody had no gumption about making a ruckus and telling me to shove it.

Well, I decided that since he was most of the way through the wooden slat to the attic, he would soon make it all the way through, and then he could just move in and be quiet. Silly me. I somehow thought that he had some normal bird purpose in his mind. It turned out that he's an evil woodpecker, set on world domination and sending people to the crazy farm.

He made it through the wood slat, but didn't stop his daily drum practice. He started a lovely new hole, right next to the original one. So my hammering never stopped. I never get a break from trying to make noise to scare him off.

Having done some research, I've learned that woodpeckers are on some weird Colorado endangered list. Not because they are endangered; rather because they are non-migratory birds. I guess if they don't go anywhere else (I've noticed this...), we'll never get a decent selection of them. I don't want them, though. In a cartoon on Saturday morning? Sure thing! But in my house on Saturday morning? Go away! So, with their "listed" status, killing them is illegal and therefore not an option.

So, what's a person to do when they can't just exterminate their home-invading nemesis? Well, it seems that loud noises scare them. Duh. I figured that out. However, do I want to set up some automatic noisemaker in an attempt to replace the head-splitting hammering combined with house destruction with another recurring noise just to deter the original noisemaker? That doesn't seem helpful.

Woodpeckers are also bothered by movement. I noticed this, too. I'm well on my way to becoming an ornithologist. Putting a shiny mobile of some sort near the woodpecker's preferred knocking place is an easy way to startle him. Hm. It's a good idea, but I have no idea where to find said shiny mobile, nor a decent way to mount it to the inside corner where the eave slopes.

Putting something over the perching point is another way to force your unwanted housemate to move on. Stretching some fishing line just near enough to the actual footing location is enough to prevent the woodpecker from alighting and pestering you all day long.

This last one is the one we will try. I hope our ladder is long enough to reach that high. I hope that the fishing line actually works and Woody finds another place to peck. We will also need to fix the entire vent, and possibly clean out the attic.

But maybe, just maybe, I can return to my domestic bliss.