A Bird in the Dryer Vent

[philcobendixduo]

For only the second time in the 54 years I've lived in this house, a bird found it's way into the dryer vent pipe and died there.
(The dryer is on an inside wall so the pipe goes up inside the wall and across the ceiling to get to the outside wall)
Saturday, I went into the laundry room and was assaulted by a terrible stench.
I knew right away it was probably a dead "something" in the dryer vent.
I opened the dryer door and the smell was even worse inside the dryer.
Today, I moved the dryer out from the wall (not easy in my tiny indoor laundry room) and got my shop vac going.
I have dryer vent pipe cleaning kit with an adapter to allow the shop vac hose to seal to the dryer vent pipe opening.
As soon as I connected it and started the vacuum, I heard the "thunk" of something being sucked up.
After the pipe was completely cleaned out, I open the shop vac to find a small bird - just like last time many years ago.
My outside vent DID have a metal screen over it, but I had to remove it shortly after moving in as it would repeatedly clog with lint blocking the airflow.
The vent "hood" is embedded in stucco so it would be hard to change it out to something more "secure".
It is at the top of a downstairs wall just under the eaves.
At least this bird finally MADE me clean my dryer vent pipe - something I've been putting off for years!
The dryer, BTW, is a 1987 Kenmore Limited Edition Electronic Fabric Care.
FUN TIMES!

 

[tomturbomatic]

I'm glad for your success.

 

[circlew]

One day about 40 years ago I kept hearing a noise in the laundry room. I tracked it down to the Maytag HOH dryer, which was not being used at that moment. I opened it and looked in, but saw nothing inside. I was afraid it was a bat, so turned it on to either blow it back out, or have it meet its demise. After it ran for a half hour or so, I let it cool a while. I then removed the lint filter and looked in with a flashlight, and could see something behind the filter housing. I told my mom, and she said to take it apart, and remove whatever was in there. Much to our sorrow, it was a little sparrow. If I'd known it was a bird, I would have gotten out alive.