In Hitchcock’s 1963 horror movie The Birds, birds of all kinds mysteriously start attacking people. In one scene, in particular, countless birds invade a California house, and the homeowners start running for their lives.
It’s just a movie, right? Wrong.
Sometimes your worst nightmares can come true in real life, and this is indeed what happened a few days ago for a family in Torrence, California.
The family was at home when they suddenly realized there were birds coming in from the chimney.
“There were birds coming out of everywhere. It was insane,” Kerri, the homeowner, told Inside Edition.
The “feathered friends” literally filled the house, making it unsafe for owners to even be there.
“They were just bouncing off your head,” Patrick Belleville, the boyfriend of Kerri’s mom, said. “As soon as I walked in the door, I was looking for Alfred Hitchcock.”
The family called animal control hoping that they would give them some useful tips, but they just encouraged them to leave all the doors open in order to help the birds find a way out.
Still, the birds wouldn’t go away on their own. Some of them actually attached themselves to the ceiling, making it clear they had come to stay.
The family had to remove them by hand, and it wasn’t an easy task. On the contrary, it took them about three days to get done with all of them. They counted about 1,500 birds!
But once the birds were out, the homeowners had one more task to do: clean up the mess the birds had left behind.
“Up there there’s still bird droppings that we couldn’t reach,” Kerri said, showing the reporters specific parts in the house.
But this house was not the only one that was “attacked” by birds. A home in Montecito, California, was almost invaded by hundreds of birds, too. Luckily, the homeowners were provident enough to have set up a steel grate at the fireplace.
But, why do birds invade human homes anyway?
Well, according to Jeff Corwin, wildlife biologist and host of the show “Ocean Treks,” this is the time of year when birds roost.
“They roost in the home where they want to begin their families,” Corwin said. “They are taking advantage of what they feel is good structure and away from predators.”
Experts agree that birds are attracted by structures that provide a food source that is readily available to them and makes it much more convenient to feed their hatchlings.
At the same time, and since man can scare away their natural predators, they seem to prefer man-built structures.
Given all the above, it doesn’t come as a surprise that birds would enter a house and try to roost there.
How can you make sure your house won’t be the next one to be invaded by birds?
Well, you can start by setting up a strong screen on top of your chimney, which will make it impossible for birds to make their way through.
Also, you can put a steel grate at the fireplace so that you can prevent them from entering the house if they manage to go through the chimney.
In the video below you can watch the homeowners’ narration of the incident.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
