Late last week we received a call from a Sharon MA resident who needed some advice on a few items around their house.  The first item that they were concerned about was the friendly neighborhood Woodpecker that had been eating away at a gable end trim board on their home.  When I pulled into the driveway, I immediately saw long oblong holes that the Woodpecker had been making in the trim board.  After a few questions I quickly concluded that Carpenter Bees had been nesting and laying eggs in the trim board for quite a while.

 
There were several holes – see photo – that did not look like Carpenter Bee entrance holes.  The Carpenter Bee will bore a perfect hole in a piece of wood and when they are approximately ¼” to ½” into the board and then turn 90 degrees to the left or right and bore out a tunnel in which they will lay their eggs.  The eggs are placed in the tunnel and then the female Carpenter Bee will pack the tunnels with enough food for the larva to live off of until it is strong enough to work its own way out the wood.  Many eggs can be “nested” in the tunnel – egg, food, egg food….you get the picture.  This is what the Woodpecker was most likely going after.  The most interesting thing about this scenario was that it was very similar to another Sharon Carpenter Bee job that I had where the Carpenter Bee did not enter the trim board from the “outside” face of the board.  The bees were going up the gap that existed between the trim and the clapboard – the Carpenter Bees were creating their perfect signature holes on the “inside” (facing house) of the trim board.  This is why the damage to the trim on initial viewing was not obviously damage from Carpenter Bees.  The visible damage on the outside of the trim was from the Woodpecker hitting the already hollowed out tunnels from the Carpenter Bees.  The Woodpecker was easily able to continue the damage to the board and create the oblong holes visible on the trim board.  The recommendation made to the homeowner was to contact a mutual friend of ours – Steve Patel from Cherry Creek Construction, Sharon, MA – (781) 784-6576 and have him change out the piece of trim – the existing one is gone.  Steve is a GREAT local carpenter.

The next item that the homeowner wanted to discuss with me was a bat in their attic.  Last week they had an HVAC Contractor tell them that a bat was hanging on the gable end vent on the inside of the attic in their Sharon home.  I went up to the attic – located the bat and simply used an organic mammal deterrent and sprayed a little bit beneath where the bat was hanging.  He smelled the peppermint and cinnamon and almost immediately took flight.  The bat was actually hanging between the grill and the screen on the inside of the grill.  It was not actually “in” the attic.  I then sprayed some more of the repellent on the sill and screen of the vent to encourage the bat to find a new home.

We are here to help the community of Sharon Massachusetts.  In order to keep spreading the word about Be Gone Pest Management – as the majority of this visit was consultation and advice – there was no cost for this visit – we only asked the home owners to pass along our name.