A homeowner in Phoenix asked me to build a fence that would 'confuse the birds'

I was doing a quote for a vinyl privacy fence last spring, and the guy was really nice but had this one wild request. He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'I need the top of the fence to have a pattern that birds can't figure out. They keep landing on my old one.' I asked what he meant, and he pulled out a sketch of these weird, wavy picket tops, like a roller coaster. I had to explain, as gently as I could, that birds can land on pretty much anything (they land on power lines, you know?). We settled on a normal flat top, but I still think about him sometimes, wondering if the birds are still winning. Has anyone else gotten a request that just made you stop and blink for a second?

3 comments

3 Comments

henry7638d ago

My uncle in Florida tried something similar with his mailbox post. He glued a bunch of old CDs to the top because he read online the reflections would scare off the woodpeckers. It just made them more curious, and the constant clattering drove him nuts for a whole summer.

ruby_murphy8d ago

The internet is full of solutions that just create louder problems.

seanlewis7d ago

Yeah, that's exactly what @ruby_murphy means. We fix one small noise and end up with a whole new racket we never saw coming. It's like the internet's favorite game is whack-a-mole with consequences.