Houses offer safety and security for a wide variety of dwellers, yet not always just for the typical human or standard four-legged pet members one would normally associate as common residents. Undesired residents are often discovered during a pre-sale home inspection.
I found this out one weekend morning while preparing breakfast. I had a skillet of eggs cooking on the stove and bread in the toaster that would soon ignite into flames and black smoke, setting off the wisely installed detectors in the nearby hallway.
As that smoke alarm was screeching beyond the frantic waves of my dishtowel frantically trying to flap aside the smoke billows, I was running the fan above the stove to help as well, redirecting the breakfast special effects display outside.
About four seconds before I was going to switch from a dishtowel to a hammer, the alarm quieted down. I returned to my cooking, scraping baked charcoal off the hardened bread. I then turned to flip my eggs. Which is when I noticed they were covered in feathers.
It turned out that not only was the grease filter in my range woefully undersized, but there were clearly freeloading squatters taking up residency in the ductwork leading outdoors. I had feathered tenants that had been making leasehold improvements without the approval of myself or the strata council.
After measuring the size of the grease filter and making a note to pick up the correct size later that day, I fetched my three-legged ladder from the garage and leaned it up against the exterior wall of my townhouse, to climb up and get an assessment of the situation. I wasn’t too far up the ladder when the situation flew out to assess me. In a blur of feathers and squawking fury, I quickly discovered the disadvantages of not having repaired that fourth ladder leg as I added a rash of lawn to the feathers I had to brush off my cheek and clothes.
For such small birds, Mama and Papa seemed quite able to protect their improvised duct nest. One watched from the nearby tree until I tried to reset my ladder, at which point he or she attacked as if propelled from a bazooka. The other squawked from inside my vent.
How I must have looked about 15 minutes later wearing a beekeepers’ face netting, a black leather motorcycle jacket and suede gloves in the heat of the day! But it did prevent the feathered fiend from plucking out my eyeballs as I finally made my way up the wall, prying open the vent guard to get a look inside. Indeed, a full nest had been built, blocking any hope of air movement within the pipe.
Both birds were in the tree by the time I got back with my barbecue tongs and started to remove the nest. As I dropped fragments into a garbage bag, I was relieved to see that I had started my eviction before any eggs had been laid, or worse yet, hatched.
To prevent a hasty repeat over the next few hours, I covered the vent with a paper plate and duct tape, at least until I was able to go pick up a proper plastic vent cover that would keep them out permanently. When I did that and went back up on my new ladder to install the piece, I noticed that my neighbour’s vent cover was slightly opened, and one of the birds flew out.
No need to spoil the surprise. Just wait till he’s cooking his breakfast eggs next weekend.
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
