My mother loves to do laundry. So she REALLY loves to come to my house, because there’s always a ton of laundry stacked up, both to do, and to put away. She mentioned to me how she thought there was a mouse in our laundry room when she was here, but I didn’t really think about it, because the cat litter box is in there, and sometimes the scratchign around they do could be taken for a mouse.

Then she said that our dryer isn’t working.

There’s been an awful lot of bird poop on our driveway. And even a broken, very soft blue eggshell.

Some birds have been trying to make a home in our dryer vent.

James unhooked the vent and it was STUFFED full of twigs, straw, what-have-you nest makings. He dumped it out in the trash (no eggs, thank goodness) and hooked it back up, but Saturday morning, I awoke to the twittering and scratching around to definite bird-in-the-dryer-tube noises.

Ethan was awake so we opened the window shade that looks right out to the vent from our laundry room, and saw the bird fly in and out a few times. Then he spotted us watching him and stayed away for a while.

We also have birds nesting in .. I guess the gutters right above Jocelyn’s window. It is pretty frustrating because when we bought the house, our inspector pointed this particular spot out, and said, “You need to get that closed off or you’ll have bird problems.” Our builder refused to do anything about it, and we neglected to do anything, and now, sure enough, we have bird tenants. I don’t mind that, of course, and I think we’ll leave it until fall, and then go up and screen it off somehow.

But birds in my dryer venting tube, this, I can’t really accept. I need my dryer. I dry things in my dryer. We dumped the tube out again (again, no eggs, please birds, don’t lay eggs!) but this morning, once again, I heard them busily filling my dryer tube with nest stuff. Yesterday I went to Lowes and got a nifty vent thing with a plastic cage that would block them from entering. The problem is it has to be installed on the outside of the house, and our ladder isn’t tall enough. So, buy another ladder (NO ROOM!!!) or hire someone. Or see if friends have a crazy tall ladder we could borrow (anyone have a crazy tall ladder we could borrow?)

I REALLY hope they don’t/haven’t laid eggs in there. We can watch for them as we’re emptying our dryer tube, but what would we do with them if we find them? I don’t want to hurt or abscond with some poor birds’ eggs!

Anyway. Those are our unwanted tenants… And it’s about eviction time. I have a pile of laundry to do.

-amy