How to Deter Birds with Household Items

Hang wind chimes from your eaves. The noise from the wind chimes drives birds away because they ring in an irregular fashion, and it can prevent birds from nesting in the eaves of your home.

Place pinwheels in your hanging baskets and in your garden. Push the handles into the ground so that the pinwheels remain upright and spin freely. The motion and the light bouncing off of the pinwheels scares the birds away. To make sure that the pinwheels stay effective, move the pinwheels around so that the birds do not get used to them.

Punch a hole in the top edge of a pie plate with a nail and hang it up on your fences with string. Hang two close together so that they clash in the wind, producing a noise that startles the birds. The highly reflective surface of the pie plates will help startle the birds as well.

Place lines of black electric tape down large reflective windows. Birds may attack their own reflections, and long lines that break up a reflective surface help prevent this.

Cut a diving hawk template from black construction paper and tape it to your window (see Resources 1). The hawk design will startle birds and keep them away from your window.