PHOTOS:Is this caused by mice or insects?? (paint color, damage, wood)

[mawipafl]

I agree - not mice (too many holes); not carpenter bees (wrong size hole - usually round, and too many holes); but a bird, probably yes because it looks like lots of attempts at something, either finding insects for food or trying to create a hole for a nesting spot (had neighbors once whose house was full of holes thanks to sparrows that had moved in).

[Barking Spider]

I'm going with carpenter bees. They are pretty classic bee holes. Woodpeckers usually make much smaller holes and will have clusters of holes close together.

By the way, your siding really needs painting, like maybe a year ago.

[windtimber]

Originally Posted by Barking Spider

I'm going with carpenter bees. They are pretty classic bee holes. Woodpeckers usually make much smaller holes and will have clusters of holes close together.

By the way, your siding really needs painting, like maybe a year ago.

Guess it depends on where you are. We get huge holes from woodpeckers.

[SCGranny]

I've had carpenter bees before, and their holes are almost always small (about the circumference of a finger) and circular. if the wood is damaged, a squirrel, bird, or small rodent could invade the damaged places, enlarge them, and use them as nests or storage places. It doesn't take much for invading critters to feel invited! - especially if the house was not lived in for a while.

Some of the smaller holes do look like carpenter bees', but definitely not the larger holes. Sometimes just the repair of the holes, and a presence of humans, will cause the rodents to look elsewhere. If it is squirrels or birds though, they may need further deterrent! I always thought that those big plastic owls were silly, but there was one in the bole of a tree on the property we just bought, and it seems to work for the squirrels and birds. They won't go near the area.

Honestly, though, looking at the sheathing and the holes, you may have more of a consideration - what little I could see, that house was not constructed very soundly, the sheathing doesn't appear to have any kind of back board to it. I could be wrong, but it looks like you have a lot of open space behind it. That is bad for insulation as well as longevity!

[andthentherewere3]

I think it's woodpeckers, too. We have the same damage on our house from them. And the woodpeckers we get can be pretty big, Blue Jay sized and larger. There are several different types of woodpeckers, ranging from small to large.

[BigJon3475]

I agree with granny I think they were carpenter bees and a bird or something else invited itself to the easy access hole. To many holes are practically the same size and the holes are in the grooves where the wood is the thinnest. That would only be something looking to bury itself in the cavity and not looking for the wood for food.

[Coldjensens]

Looks like woodpeckers. We have the same problem. No easy solution. It is illegal to kill them. There is a device called the woodpecker attack spider. I might try gto get some and see how they work.

[Barking Spider]

IN our area the carpenter bees do make the round holes, but they also creat the oblong ones. Carpenter bees bore into the wood, then turn and burrow a little tunnel to lay their eggs. I think they might get too close to the edge of the wood and break through and create the oblong ones.

We have a lot of cedar siding houses and see a bunch of it here. I have been at houses and seen them in action.

I'll put some money on it - or at least some Krispy Kreme donuts

[20yrsinBranson]

Originally Posted by windtimber

Looks like a woodpecker to me. We've had one or two get real attached to one or two spots, even though there's nothing to feed on, and hammer away. Put some tin sheeting up and that moves it off to a tree or a neighbor's place...

I second the woodpecker theory. Looks very familiar. LOL

20yrsinBranson
(rural Missouri, woodpecker heaven)

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by joeman

I 'may' buy this fixer-upper, but found these holes in the exterior wood underneath one window. What caused it? Mice? Drilling wasps? I noticed nut or shell husks in one of the bigger holes, so I'm sure mice are living in there, but I wonder what caused the holes in the first place? And why only under that one window? I don't see them anywhere else on the exterior.

Those holes appear to be consitent with carpenter bees. Since you found "shell husks" around one of the bigger holes, that confirms it to my mind. Carpenter bees dig channels about 8" long into studs and substantial wooden members. I'll bet that if you tear that siding off you will see that the studs are covered in little holes about the size of a nickel, like this:

http://www.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes...r_bee_2664.jpg

Carpenter bees do this:

http://www.bugspray.net/pictures/beenest.jpg
to studs. They can't do that in siding, so I'll bet those are just ingress holes.

Your "shell husks"; did they look anything like this?-
http://www.acewalco.com/images/carpenter_bee_wood-lg.jpg (broken link)
http://www.acewalco.com/images/carpenter_bee_wood-lg.jpg (broken link)

If so, that shortens the list of culprits considerably.

Carpenter bees can be pretty destructive, but you have to let them work undisturbed for a very long time. It looks like this house hasn't been suffering from "overmanagement" and there may be some extensive damage to that wall. It's nothing you can't fix, but I'll bet this isn't the only problem that this house has.

It's also possible that you've had a number of animals working on this portion of the house. For example, a bird trying to extract carpenter bee larvae from the wood beneath. All kinds of possibilities.