What started out as a mealworm inspection in a California home by Nick Castro of Nick’s Extreme Pest Control quickly became, well, a little bit extreme.
The rental home’s chimney had been filled 20 feet high with 700 pounds of acorns, stashed there by a “crazy” woodpecker, Castro said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Castro told the Press Democrat. “The more acorns I pulled out from the wall, the more there were. It felt like it wasn’t going to end.”
NPR shared this video sent by Castro, showing the mountain of acorns that poured from the wall, which the caption says must have been building up for two to five years.
The Press Democrat reported that the birds had pecked holes in the chimney stack —damaging the house’s siding — and dropped the nuts down. But the stash had since been neglected, because it was topped with rat feces and fiberglass.
Castro originally posted pictures on his company’s Facebook page, calling the bird “a bit of a hoarder” even in the bird world. He said he had never come across anything like it before.
Some new siding and eight trash bags of acorns later, Castro said he hopes the bird finds somewhere else to stash its nuts.