You would be surprised…we were!
A few weeks ago, we had a call from one of our clients saying they were working on a building and had come across a pigeon problem which we needed to take a look at. As always, not a problem, so we popped down to the site in Poole, Dorset to take a look and provide the necessary expert advice on all things pigeon related.
On arrival at site, we were were taken to the problem area. Basically, the building which is a church hall, was being refurbished, and part of this activity was to lag and existing roof space. so the builders cut a small hatch in the roof, only to find that the loft space was crammed with pigeon poo, dead birds, old nests, and massive amounts of cobwebs.
It turns out that in the past, pigeons gained access to this space – unbeknown to the occupants of the building via a missing soffit and for the last 100 years had made this home. We were the first people to have entered this space since the place had been built.
This was no small building either….you can imagine the size of a hall! The void was literally covered in poo. In most places there was at least 6 – 9 inches of guano, in some places worse.
So Rapid to the rescue once more! The next day, we got to site and went through an action plan to ensure the area could be cleared safely and effectively, without affecting the work going on in other parts of the building. We cordoned off and sealed the areas most affected and the builders had to move to different areas for safety – with this amount of dust and possible contamination we did not want workers near us at all.
Then the task started – there are no short cuts in this type of issue – so its full on manual labour shovelling the spoils into bags and removing. The area was sprayed with PX Ornikill to start with and then as each layer gets cleared, re-sprayed to ensure the waste is thoroughly treated and neutralised before moving it. The other problem we had was the small hatch cut into the roof – each bag had to be lowered down to ground level one by one – and believe me there was a hell of a lot of bags!
After 2 days of non stop shovelling, we were in a position to hoover, brush and clean the area, spraying all the while to make the area safe of pathogens and contamination. After what seemed like forever, we were getting close to the end, but there was still the area under the loft which was covered in the most hideous spiders webs and dirt…so these also needed cleaning off too.
Before Pic – Cobwebs
All I can say is that this was one of the toughest jobs we have faced – so many factors to add issue to the job – from heat in the loft – temperatures reached 34 degrees and in full PPE and respirators thats not fun, working at heights – we were 4.5 metres off the ground in the loft, dust, no natural light – then hard physical labour in shifting 3.6 tonnes of waste…but the guys are stoic and determined so the job got done.
So if you have a problem like pigeon poo in the loft or any other pigeon clean up problem, then the people to call are Rapid Environmental Services for a fast and effective solution to your pigeon problems
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