Anyone With Starling Experience?

[Jean DeVries]

So, we bought this house like 4 months ago. For the past three months or so, we kept hearing this scratching noise that sounded like it was in the walls in my living room. We joked that it was the ghost of the guy who owned the house before us, who lost it to foreclosure.

Well, last night my sister and I watched a bird fly in our bathroom exhaust, which for some reason comes out the back of the house rather than the side of the house where the bathroom is. And, it has a closing flap on it which the starling pushes up with it's beak in order to get in.

So tonight, my hero, my dad, put a ladder up there, took a coat hangar, and cleaned some of it out, but he went back the entire length of the coat hanger and there is still nest in there. I know starlings are nest packrats (it must be true, I read it on the internet). There were eggs in there also, which are now sitting on the lawn (except for the one that broke and ran down my screen...eeuw.)

My question is this....not knowing how long they've been in there, should we worry about disinfecting? Starlings carry histoplasmosis, and the internet is chock full o' stories of people whose houses got infested with avian lice and mites. If so, what do we disinfect with? I the exhaust fan and susequent duct is probably about 25 feet long (because that seems to make much more sense than making it 3 feet long to go out the side of the house), so I can't imagine just a little squirt or two of Lysol is going to do it.

TIA

 

[c00p]

This is above my head!! But I would certainly make sure it gets all cleaned out. It would probably be worth having someone come and clean your vent - at least that one for sure. And perhaps they would know what to do to clean it. Birds in general carry so many yucky things!!

 

[Teresa Lynn]

I would definately have it professionally cleaned
it might be expensive but considering the health problems you might encounter could be worse

We had a friend die of Legionarres disease from power washing bird nests down from his patio and front door.

not worth the risk

 

[The_Kitchen_Guy]

This is above my head!!

So is the exhaust fan.

 

[Teresa Lynn]

Is this a dryer vent instead of an exhaust fan for your bathroom?

 

[ChefBeckyD]

Clean IT!!!

I haven't had starlings, but when I owned my home in Wyoming (the city, not the state), near Lamar Park, every August, after WyomingFest, I would get an infestation of BATS! They would get disturbed by the noise, fireworks, etc....and fly out of the park and straight to my house. (we were thinking because I had the highest peak on my roof of the houses in that area) Nothing like several bats swooping through your house every night at dusk!:yuck: We never did figure out how they were getting in.

I ended up with fleas/critters from the bats, and had to have the entire house professionally fumigated. It was not pleasant.

Oh - and one exterminator charged me $180 to look in my attic and then give me these sticky strips (like fly paper, except thicker) and tell me that when I saw a bat resting on a wall, I should come up behind it and slap the sticky strip on it and drown it in a bucket of water. Ummm, didn't I just pay him to get rid of them for me? I was stunned. After he left, I thought of many things I could have/should have said to him....


So - Yes, get rid of all traces of their nests and them......

 

[Jean DeVries]

Is this a dryer vent instead of an exhaust fan for your bathroom?

No, it's the exhaust fan. The dryer actually vents out the side of the bathroom.

We couldn't figure out what it was, so we turned the exhaust fan on and off in the bathroom, and the little flappy thing kept popping out, so we knew it was the bathroom exhaust.

 

[Jean DeVries]

Clean IT!!!

I haven't had starlings, but when I owned my home in Wyoming (the city, not the state), near Lamar Park, every August, after WyomingFest, I would get an infestation of BATS! They would get disturbed by the noise, fireworks, etc....and fly out of the park and straight to my house. (we were thinking because I had the highest peak on my roof of the houses in that area) Nothing like several bats swooping through your house every night at dusk!:yuck: We never did figure out how they were getting in.

I ended up with fleas/critters from the bats, and had to have the entire house professionally fumigated. It was not pleasant.

Oh - and one exterminator charged me $180 to look in my attic and then give me these sticky strips (like fly paper, except thicker) and tell me that when I saw a bat resting on a wall, I should come up behind it and slap the sticky strip on it and drown it in a bucket of water. Ummm, didn't I just pay him to get rid of them for me? I was stunned. After he left, I thought of many things I could have/should have said to him....


So - Yes, get rid of all traces of their nests and them......

I would have liked bats. We cavers are weird that way....

Bats don't make nests, they fly out every night to get food, and we could have shut them out once they did that. They're cute and they don't eat worms.

We'll get the rest of it this weekend when we find a longer ladder. I'm trying to decide what to put in there to clean it...maybe bleach. I'm more worried about the avian lice and mites than anything else.

 

[jrny2001]

I would have the vent removed and put it the 3 feet out from the bathroom.

 

[Jean DeVries]

I would have the vent removed and put it the 3 feet out from the bathroom.

Well, yesterday my chiropractor explained to me why they probably did it that way.

Venting it over the living room to the back is because that's the way the floorboards go to the upstairs. If they had vented it to the side, they would have had to cut through all of the floorboards.

That doesn't make it any less annoying.....

 

[Intrepid_Chef]

I have a bird problem that is way too complex for me to deal with ... and it's not worth it to me anyway.Years and years and years ago ... when my parents owned my house ... before the age of Central Air ... my dad cut a hole IN THE HOUSE to install a window air conditioner.The air conditioner hasn't worked in years and the plug is not even working any more, as that line is now dedicated to the central air.For some time, birds have been living in this air conditioner.There is nothing I can do, short of removing the air conditioner and replacing it wit a window. To overlook what? The neighbor's driveway?I'd rather have a blank wall ... but that would require new siding, which is so far beyond my reach it's not funny.Besides, there is no way the birds can get in the house ... the noise just irritates me and REALLY bugs the cats ...

 

[Teresa Lynn]

Is there a way to put moth balls in it to deter them or crumpled aluminum foil something they don't like

 

[vwpamperedchef]

Call A Professional!

(also like the alum. foil trick, you could try an SOS pad (with no soap on it) and pull it apart, they hate that more and that is agood tip for mice!) My gram told me that one! It works

 

[jrny2001]

I was thinking about this today, what about a blower, like for blowing leaves in the fall and blow the nest out? Then sanitize with a bleach solution and maybe replace the vent cover with one they cant open or make a cover for it with wire mesh.