We have been living in our new home for about one and a half years and, so far, things have gone good for us. No major repairs or gripes about the way that the home was built. However, I do have to question one small aspect of the design. Why would any builder in this state make a roof that has cubbyholes overhanging the front sidewalk? These are the kind of nooks and crannies that invite pigeons to make their home on your home and proceed to make things a bit unsightly.
As you can imagine, the result of our little pigeon friends living with us is a front sidewalk and roof overhang getting caked with bird feces. With expenses being what they are, I wasn’t about to hire someone to take care of the problem. I had a stepladder, but not quite tall enough to get to the roof. As of late though, I did buy a pretty neat extension ladder so that I could better take care of the problem. Another slight problem was that our feathered friends had a nest and clutch ging on, and I wasn’t going to be inhumane enough to kick out the chicks. Recently, the nest became abandoned and I finally could do something about the situation.
I’ll confess that I don’t know much about pigeons, but yesterday I learned more than I ever wanted to know. Going up the ladder, the first thing I noticed was the lack of a true nest, twigs and mud and all. It was all layers and layers of crap! I couldn’t believe how much of it there was. I decided that pigeons have to be the messiest birds on the planet! Our pet birds can be messy too, but they don’t wallow in their own feces, much less raise their young in it. I started hacking and scooping away at this stuff, trying to get my roof to appear again, and then I find a dead chick buried underneath it all!
After getting most of the pigeon "gifts" out of there, I used the wrapping and cardboard from my new ladder to temporarily block the overhang nook so our skyrats would be discouraged from making their home there. Later, I plan to buy some "tackboard" or something else along those lines (something more sightly than plastic wrap!) to lay in there to keep the pigeons out. Next, I sprayed and doused my overhang and entryway sidewalk with a diluted mix of Pet Focus Avian Formula cleaner and let it sit for a few minutes before scrubbing it down and rinsing with water. We use that stuff for the bird cage and supply cleaning and it works too well.
Now I have a nice, clean house exterior and I plan to keep it that way! The only new problem I see is that the pigeons looked at me, said to me "You’re not kicking us out that easily, filthy human!!", and proceeded to make the upper roof their new home. *Sigh*… I guess I’ll have to deal with that when I get the tackboard!
One thing I did notice while being on the roof is that the shingles seem to be held in place by one or two nails each. I have no idea why Richmond American would be that cheap. I only say that because, when I was walking on the roof, the shingles felt like they were a hairsbreadth away from sliding out from underneath me!
Well, that’s all I can say about my little home cleaning adventure. Cheers!
This is going to be a half Dailybooth-half blog entry…
