Resident's of Walnut Creek's Rossmoor retirement community are fed up with the acorn woodpeckers that have been damaging homes and causing causing headaches for years.
During acorn season, beginning in July or August, the birds drill holes in the soft sides of Rossmoor's apartment buildings causing costly damage and unruly noise.
The holes left from the drilling became so expensive to repair, and annoying for residents, that building crews called in a federal hunter who shot and killed 22 woodpeckers over the past two years. But animal protection groups spoke out.
"No one wants to kill these birds," Bill Friesen, building maintenance manager in Rossmoor's mutual operations divisions told the CoCo Times. "We're trying to come up with an effective way of protecting our buildings against damage and our residents against (drilling) noise. It's been very difficult."
Now Rossmoor is looking into nonlethal means to deal with the birds.
