Gable Vent Paint Damage
This looks like some serious paint damage to a
wood gable vent and wood siding.
In a situation like this, this side of the house is probably facing
south and is in direct sunlight for most of the day. Sun light can
damage almost any part of your house if exposed for long periods during
the day.
This house could also be suffering from poor paint
preparation, which leads to paint peeling, because the bonding surface
was not prepared correctly for the next layer of paint that was applied.
This gable vent looks like it could have been made on the job site and
would be hard to replace at your local home improvement center.
If you run into a situation like this, you could always hire a carpenter
to build a new gable vent if this one was ever to become severely
damaged.
You could also replace this gable vent with a metal one and some wood
trim over the siding.