8 Great Ways To Stop A Bird From Nesting On Your Home

It happens every year in spring, and if you live in an area where the birds love to visit and live there are going to be areas on and around your home that you won’t want birds to nest. Lots of the customers I service all the time have bird feeders and they welcome the birds to come to visit their home by feeding them, however, birds can bring with them some of the meanest pests that can infest your home and cause major infestation issues. I can’t just knock nests down as a pest professional either. We always wait for the season to end by late summer most birds are out of the nests and we then knock them all down.

Here are my top 8 perfect ways to stop a bird from nesting on your home.

Visual Repellents/Rubber Snake/Plastic Owl
Spikes
Bird Repellent
Netting/Copper Mesh/Bird Tape
Sonic Deterrents
Seal Your Home/Bird Caulking/Vent Covers
Mirror Chimes/Hang CDs
Create Bird Habitats Around Your Property

Knowing which of the 8 ways to outfit your home to keep birds away will depend on what areas of your home these birds are likely to nest.

Visual Repellents

Visual repellents are an amazing way to stop the initial thought of a bird from nesting on your home. You should know that this is not a permanent solution for keeping the birds away it is only a temporary deterrent.

Here are some visual repellents:

Rubber Snake- You can hand a realistic rubber snake either from you light on the front porch, in between a downspout, or from the top of a pillar between the soffits on the front porch. When a bird sees the snake it will worry about the safety of its eggs and move on to a different location.
PlasticOwl/Hawk- A small bird will have fear of their own life with these predators. Just like the snake when a bird sees them they will get as far away as they can from them.

After a while, if a bird passes by these places and notices that these things don’t move or look at them they will figure this out. So this deterrent works for a bit but is not a complete fix.

Spikes

There are 2 types of spikes you can get to keep birds from nesting in unwanted areas. They sell plastic spikes that are less invasive and are uncomfortable that keep the birds from nesting in the area you place them in. There are also aluminum spikes that are sturdier and have a more proactive approach.

Spike can be placed almost anywhere you have a ledge.

Good places to put spikes may be:

Pillars- at the top of your front porch between the soffits and the pillar
Gutters- along the length of the gutter
Window Ledges
Under Decking

Bird Repellent

There are liquid repellents that are concentrated that don’t harm the birds but just keep them from moving in. I recommend 4 The Birds – This is a concentrated mixture that should be diluted to the ratio the label suggests. Use this repellent on girders, struts, supports, trees, eaves, soffits, and downspouts. Don’t apply this to trees or shrubs that produce fruit or flowers so as not to hurt honey bees or other animals food sources.

Netting/Copper Mesh

You can section off areas that birds will be likely to nest in and mount the net making sure to pull it tight so as to not cause harm to the bird should it get caught in it. Copper Mesh can be placed in areas birds can squeeze into and since they don’t like the feel of the copper mesh they will move on to a different area.

Sonic Deterrents

You can pick up a sonic deterrent anywhere from 13-230 dollars in a big box store. There are some that are battery operated and some that can be plugged in. Most of them are motion activated and will make an unbearable tone that drives a bird crazy. This is a great way to keep an unwanted bird from nesting on your home.

Seal Off Your Home

Now when you are sealing off your home you will want to start with all the vents. Seal the dryer vents with a cage around it.

You can buy screen material to seal off attic vents and to seal gable vents. If you have a chimney you will want to seal that area off with a chimney cap or if it is a gas fireplace use a gas burning fan system since it will have the built-in tech you will need for it. There is an actual bird caulk. You can use this to seal around HVAC hoses, exhaust fans, and most small openings a bird could get into.

Reflective Chimes/Bird Tape

Birds do not like flashing light and seeing a mirror image of themselves will make them move on from that particular space. If you hang a mirrored wind chime it will help deter them from the area you place them in.

Bird Tape is reflective and can be hung with pins near all nesting sites to create a visual effect that there is already another bird in the space.

Create Bird Habitats

Ok, so I am not saying you need to take a hammer and hang a birdhouse on all the trees in your yard. But I am saying you need to at least build a platform for them to have more nesting places.

You can build platforms in bushes or on trees, the trick is to make sure the areas are covered by some branches. You could also build a roof for the platform to give the birds some shelter.

Birds will prefer a place that has cover from the weather and out of sight from predators. An example of this is a chicken coop.

Summary

It is important to be vigilant if you do not wish to have the birds nesting on your home. If a bird nest already exists in an unwanted area, usually the best solution is to wait until they are done using that area to knock the nest down.

There are some cases where you may need to take care of the issue even if they are nesting currently. If you contract bird mites that have made their way into your home this is a recipe for a small disaster in that they feed off of a host. Also, there is the potential to get bird flu.

I say that before all this is happening it will serve you better to try some of these remedies to have a more proactive approach and help avoid future issues.