See this? This is what I call a big problem.
We used to love having birds roost in our porch rafters. “Awwww…the babies are so cute!”
Then we had bird mites….in the house. “Kill them!! Kill them all!!!”
Okay, so I’m not that heartless and neither is Zan, but since we can’t have them building nests here anymore, we have a problem.
This Mama has been building and re-building her nest for three weeks now. We keep taking it down, other birds keep destroying it, and yet she frantically keeps rebuilding. The photo is half a day’s progress. She’s getting faster as each day passes. She’s relentless. And my heart bleeds for her. Mother to Mother, I feel her intense need to see her children safely into the world…to protect them from harm once they’re here. And everytime we destroy her nest, I swallow the lump in my throat. She’s killing me with her desperation.
However, my need to protect my home and MY babies from bird mites is more important.
Sorry Mama, this nest can’t stay. Now we bring out the Big Guns….aluminum pans.
A Half Hour a Day 
Would she build in a bird house if provided?
Uh … clueless moment here. Why aluminum pans?
We went through the same thing here… we have a covered back porch and there were nests in three of the corners, weher the posts are. Kept taking them down but the birds would always rebuild… until dh wrapped chicken wire around the posts and attached it to the roof part, preventing the birds from getting into the corners. He left the one corner, because we’ve never had a nest there before, and wouldn’t you know it, one of the birds started building there, even though it wasn’t as protected as the other three corners. so that post got chickenwired, too.
I honestly don’t know if she’d build in a birdhouse. Worth a shot though, isn’t it?
And I thought shiny aluminum pans hung in the rafters might scare her away.
What we REALLY need to do is flash the porch roof so it stops leaking, and then put in that ceiling that we’ve been meaning to put in for years now. The chicken wire fix may have to do for now though. Good idea Daily. Thank you!
A cheap plastic snake from the dollar store will do the trick.