When we moved into our new house a couple of months ago, we were told that the old microwave misbehaved at an alarming rate and would need to be changed sooner or later.  Well, later came sooner than I thought it would this past weekend and I finally got fed up enough with it to go to Lowe’s and purchase a new one.  Of course, the model we had is no longer available (the company is not even around anymore) so I had to purchase a completely different model with a different mount (requiring holes to be drilled and all that crud).  Anyway, we pull off the old microwave and to my shock and amazement, there are bird feathers stuck to the back of it.  Now, I’ve seen birds make nests in dryer vents and the like before so this was not a complete shock to me except that one of the feathers was extremely large (like a fully grown dove large) and this caused some strife in my mind as I considered what I would find in the vent.  I decided to check the vent outside before going any further because if I was facing live animals I was going to behave differently than if I was facing dead ones.  Sure enough, the vent had heavy duty chicken wire covering it with these massive screws so I guessed that someone had already determined that birds were getting into the vent.

So, I go back inside, put on my handy-dandy surgical rubber gloves and mess around with the vent cover, making enough noise that any living creature would scuttle away or at least let me know it was there.  Since I got no response, I pulled the inside vent cover off and was immediately hit with the smell of old, nasty birds’ nest.  I can also see what appears to be the remains of two, count’em two fully-grown robins.  I grab a couple of plastic bags and start to remove the dead birds, which had apparently been dead for a while because there was nothing but feathers and bones, and as I’m removing the ones I can see, TWO MORE BIRDS FALL OUT OF THE VENT!  Four stinking, nasty, disgusting dead birds are in the vent that leads to the place where I cook 30-60% of my meals on any given night.  I don’t remember ever using that much Lysol on any one item before in my life; I just hope it was enough.  I think I’m also going to check that outside vent cover a little better as well to make sure that this doesn’t happen again…