Sunday, November 16, 2008
Rossmoor vs. Woodpeckers
Environment / Social Services Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 4:49 PM
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Maybe we're just obsessed with Rossmoor all the time, but the Chron's John Koopman has a magnificent piece about how residents of the massive retirement community are about to embark upon a bloody spree of murder and mayhem. According to the Chron, woodpeckers have been busy drilling holes in the residents' homes to store nuts for the winter. Angry homeowners have tried all sorts of non-lethal devices to scare away the birds: robot spiders, recordings of woodpeckers being horribly devoured by predators, you name. Nothing has worked. So Rossmoor has finally received permission from the Fish and Wildlife Service to start killing them. Well, fifty of them, at least. And how will Rossmoor's managers murder their woodpeckers? Do they plan to set elaborate traps? Poison their acorns? No. They plan to hire a sharpshooter, who will silently stalk the retirement campus, crouching near the sandtraps and mah jong tables, getting a bead on the little fuckers and turning 'em into woodpecker goulash. Like we said, great story! — Chris Thompson
Maybe we're just obsessed with Rossmoor all the time, but the Chron's John Koopman has a magnificent piece about how residents of the massive retirement community are about to embark upon a bloody spree of murder and mayhem. According to the Chron, woodpeckers have been busy drilling holes in the residents' homes to store nuts for the winter. Angry homeowners have tried all sorts of non-lethal devices to scare away the birds: robot spiders, recordings of woodpeckers being horribly devoured by predators, you name. Nothing has worked. So Rossmoor has finally received permission from the Fish and Wildlife Service to start killing them. Well, fifty of them, at least. And how will Rossmoor's managers murder their woodpeckers? Do they plan to set elaborate traps? Poison their acorns? No. They plan to hire a sharpshooter, who will silently stalk the retirement campus, crouching near the sandtraps and mah jong tables, getting a bead on the little fuckers and turning 'em into woodpecker goulash. Like we said, great story! — Chris Thompson
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Based on the photo in the November 14 San Francisco Chronicle (page B4), the part of the buildings the woodpeckers are drilling is either an expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) trim on a stucco wall or an entire wall system known as EIFS (exterior insulation and finish system), which is essentially EPS with a 1/16 inch coat of latex modified cement mortar and fiberglass mesh on the surface – sometimes called synthetic stucco.
The material has seen widespread use over the last 15 years or so because it is cheap and easy to create articulations that look like cement plaster (stucco). One of the downsides of EIFS is that is that it has low durability, a property the woodpeckers seem to have discovered and exploited. There is no doubt that the woodpeckers would not be drilling holes in real stucco.
What we have here is not a woodpecker problem but a design and construction problem – the use of a building materials insufficiently durable to withstand the environment (including woodpeckers).
The people of Rossmoor should be shooting their architects, contractors and developers, not innocent woodpeckers.
Chris, your post is full of mis-information. Try getiing the facts before embelishing your story.
The comment by architec is on target for some of the effected buildings. The EFIS system is vulnerable and the HOA is changing those compoonents over a long term basis, perhap 5-7 more years. However other buildings under attack are standard wood framed and the damages are extensive. Like most wildlife, the wood peckers don't come up to your front door, they focus on the remote, high parts of the buildings. This can be cost prohibitive to do regular patching and prevention.
Remember, these are HOA's, they have to pay a Contractor for service, prevention and repairs. AIMHO.
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