How to Keep Birds From Building Nests on Your Porch

Stacy Davis
by Stacy Davis
2 Materials
$20
15 Minutes
Easy

I’ve had many houses in my lifetime but this is the first time I’ve had this problem. I have birds that like to build their nests on the eaves of our front porch. Delivery people and pest control people looked very anxious while they were waiting for us to come to the door. Many times I would walk right out the door and the bird would panic and dive bomb me on their way out. The first time it happened, I waited for the babies to take flight and leave and then I put up some homemade bird detractors.

Short 1 minute video of assembling bird spikes and installing them.

Here’s a baby…

Here’s my homemade bird spikes. I put those up in the three places that the birds had been building their nests. And those birds just found new places to build their nests. That’s when a neighbor came over and said she had the same problem until she bought bird spikes. “Thank you, Sandy!”

This is what they look like when they arrive.

It takes just about a minute to assemble and then you have something that looks like this.

First I had to take down the nests.

You could attach them with screws but I decided that construction adhesive would be easier.

I put down some adhesive…

I placed the bird spikes on top.

Since the space I was working with was wide, I used two sets of bird spikes.

I think this should work well. Have you heard of bird spikes before at residential properties? Any funny bird stories to share?

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Frequently asked questions
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  • Barbara Lee Barbara Lee on Sep 15, 2021

    Anyone think of plastic or rubber snakes?we had terrible repeat nests until laid the very real looking snakes up on the ledges. birds are gone.

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  • Katen Katen on Aug 25, 2025

    I can think of many ways to discourage birds from nesting on porch. I like the spikes but not the look (reminds me of WWII concentration camp for birds, not in my home). Since birds did $1,000’s damage with nests in downspouts on former home, something like this would be lovely and unseen. Now to stop nesting in door wreathes….

  • Janet F Janet F on Aug 25, 2025

    You have to be careful where you attach the spikes. We sat outside our local Panera and watched several birds managing to fly over the spikes and settle happily behind them.


    i had a swallow problem so after the babies flew I knocked down the nest and hung long metallic streamers and garland along the beams and threaded through my hanging plants. It took time but they are gone. I won’t say forever because swallows are persistent but I took all the stuff down about a month ago and they haven’t come back.

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