Sparrows can be vermin

One of my neighbours has just called round on his way down to the town to buy some wire mesh. When I enquired why he needed wire mesh, he told me it was to make cages to cover his air conditioning units.

It seems that sparrows have taken to nesting on the top of the units which are conveniently placed just below the overhang on his roof. That poses two problems for him.

Firstly, he has a trail of excrement down the units and the wall but worse than that, the birds peck at the foam insulation on the feed pies to use as nesting material. He has already replaced the foam insulation once but within four months, the birds have pecked it away again.

It might be nice to have birds in the garden and they do have their uses controlling the insect population but not when they cause these sort of problems. I remember someone who had terrible issues with house martins. Lovely birds that they were, they insisted on building nests under his eaves which meant he had to climb a ladder to remove them once the chicks had gone. We too had a problem with birds at our previous house when they found their way under the roof tiles and into the roof void. You could hear then scampering about on the bedroom ceiling so they got their marching orders.

I hope the cages work for my neighbour. They won’t be the most elegant solution but then neither is cleaning muck off the walls and replacing foam insulation.

I recall that one of our ex neighbours from years back bought an airgun to get rid of the wood pigeons that were causing problems for him. However, he could only pop the birds off when no one else was around because he knew that some people would object to him killing them – rats and other vermin yes but birds no.