making your house a home

making your house a home

Pigeons On Your Roof: Problems They Cause And How To Get Rid Of Them

Alide Oortwijn

Pigeons on and around your house are not only noisy, they are a health risk and can cause damage to your home. If you have only a few pigeons on your roof, they can multiply quickly to become a larger problem. Pigeons can live up to thirty years and one female pigeon can produce up to 18 pigeons from nine broods during one year. Here are some of the problems pigeons can bring to your home and how you can get rid of them.

Structural Damage

When pigeons roost on your home's exterior and roof, their droppings cause the most damage. Pigeon droppings contain a high amount of acid and can soften and erode most surfaces, including hard stone. The droppings can damage paint, siding, and the concrete of your driveway or sidewalk. Pigeon droppings, their nesting materials, and feathers can clog up the rain gutters and downspouts on your home, leading to other drainage problems with your roof and home's exterior. 

Besides having damaging droppings, pigeons are capable of lifting loose roofing tiles or soffits to try to gain entry into the attic of your home. Once they are inside your attic they can leave droppings there, which carry diseases and can leave a foul odor in your home. The acid in their droppings can damage any attic insulation or structural beams. Then you will have to pay to have the droppings removed and the building materials repaired. If the droppings build up inside your attic floor, the weight of the droppings can cause the floor to collapse into the room below it.

Diseases

Over 60 types of bacterial, viral, parasitic and fungal diseases are related to pigeons. Three diseases that can be contracted by humans from the droppings of pigeons include histoplasmosis, cryptococcosis, and psittacosis. Pigeon droppings in the attic or on the roof of your home, and droppings in a pigeon nest in your chimney or home ventilation system can make you or your family ill. When pigeon droppings become dry, particles of the droppings can become airborne and you ingest them, causing you to be ill with one of these pigeon diseases.

Histoplasmosis is one of the most common diseases you can get from pigeon droppings. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there was an outbreak of histoplasmosis from bird droppings in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1978. Airborne particles of the fungus from bird droppings containing histoplasmosis infected approximately 120,000 people and killed 15 people. When you have become infected with histoplasmosis, you can show symptoms of fever, fatigue, and chest pains after ten days.

Pigeon Remedies

If you don't want to worry about getting rid of your pigeons by yourself, you can hire a professional pest control service to repel or trap and humanely kill the birds. If you were to poison the pigeons around your home, there is a chance they could die inside your attic or other nesting area where they will stink and further spread disease. A pest control professional will clean out and remove the pigeons so their droppings can be cleaned from your home.

There are several ways to repel pigeons from your home. You can install spikes along any areas of your home where pigeons like to roost, such as window sills, roof edges, and along the top of your chimney. There are anti-perching wires you can have installed along edges pigeons congregate. The wire is too thin and wobbly for the birds to get a good grip with their feet, so they do not perch there. You can also have wire or mesh netting installed over areas where pigeons like to nest, such as the fascia under the eaves of your roof, or in exterior vents of your home. All these pigeon repel products installed on your home do not detract from the aesthetics of your home.

Make sure to recognize and take care of a pigeon problem on or around your home and prevent the damage they can cause. While the pest control company is working on your pigeon problem, you might want to have bed bug exterminators check your home for insects too.


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About Me
making your house a home

The place we call home should be just that - a home. You should feel nothing but comfort and peace when you are at home. The layout and the way that you decorate your home will have a significant impact on the level of comfort you experience. This blog will provide you with several tips that will help you create the most comfortable and inviting place to call home. By the time you reach the conclusion, you will have ideas swirling through your mind of what you will do to your home next to improve how it looks and feels.

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