woodpecker question

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep a woodpecker from attacking a house? My next door neighbors bought the major fixer-upper next door and they are working on it at nights and weekends but not living there yet. There is a rather large woodpecker that spends almost every day sitting on one of the windows and attacking the window frame. He's slowly destroying all the window frames. Is there something they can do to discourage him from doing this?
Thanks in advanced.

The woodpecker is likely hammering it just to make a noise to say "this is my patch, keep out" to other woodpeckers. So maybe fix some sort of plastic strips to the wood so it doesn't resonate and make a loud noise?

Resin

Thanks Resin. I will let them know to try this. It is loud. Quite a few times I thought they were over there working only to realize it was the woodpecker when I've caught a glance at him. He's huge. His wing span covers the entire window I saw him on once.

If it has a red crest on its head, it is a piliated woodpecker. Great to have around if it's attention can be changed from the house to trees.

If it's the same one that nested in the tree that came down last week, the babies (that didn't live thru the tree falling) I think had red rings around their necks. It was a bit hard to tell as we saw them in the dark by flashlight and mainly checked to see if there was any life left in them before moving on to check for further damage. My neighbors were worried about that tree coming down but were waiting for the babies to leave the nest before cutting it down. They were more upset about the babies than their freshly planted garden the tree fell across or the minor damage to the house.
I don't know much about woodpeckers. Why are they great to have around?

Debug the trees. However you do not want them destroying wood on the house.

You asked, "why are they great to have around" ? Since mankind has encroached on their habitat, they are probably asking the same thing about us humans. We certainly don't want it (Pileated Woodpecker) to go the way of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The Pileated Woodpecker is one of my favorite birds ......

Do a Google search on 'Woodpecker repellent'. You will find some recommendations.

very cool looking bird! I don't remember red on the head tho, I thought it was around the neck. I'll see if I can get a closer peek at him next time I hear him on the window and possibly get a picture. We are surrounded by woods. Debugging the woods wouldn't be feasible and if they eat ticks, I love them. But, yeah, don't want them destroying the house. They are welcome to stay, just need to stay off the house. This is a wood house built by a missionary family from trees from these woods. Half of it has to be torn down but they are repairing the half that is salvageable. It was vacant for a while. They have tons of work to do and I don't envy them one bit. I'm going to tell them to try the plastic and see if that works. We don't want them leaving the area.

I totally agree with linthicum< we have managed to destroy the woodpeckers and allot of our birds habitat's. We lost allot of our trees in the last set of hurricanes in Texas. We have an ash tree that has been dedicated to the birds and squirrels. One of my most scecial pictures was this spring of the young pileated just having his way with my ash tree.

Just be happy that they are still coming by to say hello and have a bite.

Nice sharp photo of the Pileated.

They just don't always stop by to say hello. While one is pecking on one side of the house (distracting the homeowner), another is on the other side checking out the owner's valuables. No bird-brain here !!!

They will even check out your car ..........

Great shots Danea and Linth!

I would love to get some pics of them.

I love the birds around here and don't do anything to chase them away. My two favorites are the mocking birds and the chuck-wills-widow (I think that's what it's called). I could sit up all night and listen to him. I have a mocking bird that says "pretty bird". The only one's I really don't care for are the hawks and that's because I have small dogs and I worry. Last year, one nested right by the neighbor's house and he was constantly too close for comfort. We had bluebirds all over our old house but haven't seen any here yet. I have large "bird house" gourds planted to make some houses for them this winter. Hopefully I can attract some.
I'd love to get a shot of our woodpecker as nice as the one's you guys just posted. We'll see. Won't be today. It's pouring rain.

We wouls also see if it is a piliated, I went by the size description.

You've got a bunch of naughty Pileateds there, Linth!

There was a little downy wp working on houses here, one set of boards had to be replaced--chased it when he worked on ours.

he/she looks like the pictures posted above. I saw him/her on my other neighbor's house right in front of me today. I had just taken my camera back inside too because it was threatening to rain. I told the neighbors with the ruined window frames about covering the wood and they are going to hang rubber strips over them for now and see if it works. Thanks everyone! I'll still see if I can get some pictures.