Whiskey and Tango?

We have some friends in our ward who are feeling a little "white trash" because of a stop-gap home repair they had to do. Some wind came up and nearly knocked their vinyl fence over so they used straps and come-alongs to secure the fence to something more solid. Sounds fine to me, but the lady of that house doesn't care for the look.

Well, I was feeling pretty white trash this morning. Our laundry is on our second floor and the dryer vent makes its way to the side of our house in the backyard. It's about 10 feet off the ground and lately our neighborhood birds have discovered it. They've begun dragging organic material inside the vent and building a nest. These birds were walking inside the vent. It was weird hearing it because at first we just thought we had large mice inside our wall / floor cavity.

They say not to let your dryer vent get clogged because it becomes a fire hazard. That's true. I don't imagine adding dry grasses and sticks to the vent does much to mitigate any potential fire hazard. So last night around 10pm I took the vent cover off and cleaned out the tube. To block future bird use, I pulled out some screen material I had, cut a square, and placed it over the hole with some duct tape.

I wasn't sure how to make this a permanent solution until my wife pointed out the obvious: put the vent cover back on over the screen and vent and cut the excess off. Duh. I've since done that and we're a little less white trash today. The duct tape has been removed and we shouldn't have any more bird invasions.