I have an unbelievably bad bird problem at my house, and I don't know what to do. We are trying to sell our home and I have to spray off the bird poop with a hose every morning. Today I sprayed right before taking the oldest to school, went shopping for an hour and came home. The back yard patio was covered in poop again.

Before anyone says, "just shoot them with a pellet gun" (we're not adverse to that idea), there are several neighbors who do this. They still have problems, and some of the birds have landed and died on our roof. The remaining birds just nest next to the dead carcasses without a care.

Does anyone else have this problem? Can anyone offer a potential solution? Is there a bird repellent on the market that works? Any personal bird horror anecdotes so I don't feel like I'm suffering alone?

You could try Zyklon B. But i would avoid having the children home (or would I?).

Do you or your neighbors have cats? Does anyone around you toss moldy bread into their backyard?

Well, I am capable of making hydrogen cyanide with common household ingredients (I have a chemistry degree), but I think it is prohibited in its pure form. I have been contemplating Alka-Selzer though.



We have a lot of stray cats, but they don't seem to come around when they are needed...... Moldy bread?

Mrs Pigpen

Seriously. You could use Hydrogen cyanide to spray over the tree´s (which i presume have the hostile forces (birds) in them), which should not be to much of a breah of law.

And as we are not talking about concentrated form it is not more dangerous then most "household" items.


And its legal (atleast for companies).

A friend throws moldy or ready-to-mold bread in her backyard for the birds. Just wondering what attracts so many to your area.

Cats have been reported to be a serious problem in some areas and a town—I forget which—proposed shooting roaming cats on site, feral or otherwise. :-O

This article may offer some new ideas you haven't tried but it reads like an uphill battle.

Climb in the tree and put in a scare crow?

My company has these things around our front windows...

Maybe look for used ones on eBay?

Just leave it be, and teller potential buyers that the reason the birds come is because St. Francis appeared there and spoke to you...

Call me a tree-hugging weirdo but I think that killing the birds is a bit excessive. I mean really, I know people with neighbors who destroy property values more than those birds might be doing. Spraying poison everywhere is ridiculous and irresponsible.
Yes, you will kill some birds...not to mention a whole lot of other creatures. And if there is something beneficial in that area causing the birds to promulgate there then others will just replace the ones you killed.

Try something a bit more subtle like a Bird of Prey decoy. They scare the bejesus out of other birds and you don't have to plug them in.


It amazes me how Americans always try the most complex, technological solution first. We love overkill. We lack finesse sometimes. I found it challenging to find a distributor of those decoys in the U.S. but I bet I could buy copious amounts of poisons and pesticides online.

I understand how you feel...I'd have said the same thing 3 years ago because I'd never encountered this scale of a problem. Those types of bird decoys dot the houses out here. Birds nest right next to them and actually sit on their heads. I placed a fake snake on our roof and it worked for only about a week. To give you some idea of what I've been through....I've had an exterminator to our house three times (in a year and a half). They remove the nests and place spikes where the birds like to nest and sit. The birds still come back....I've even seen birds sitting right on top of the spikes. Every time it rains, twenty pounds of poop flow from off of the roof (even after the last roof cleaning this happened), onto the sidewalk and grass, killing the plants due to the acidity. The acidity of the bird droppings also ate through our roof and caused a leak which costed a thousand dollars to repair....And it's just disgusting. Pigeons carry cryptococcus and disease.

I don't think cyanide gas is the answer either, though....I don't wish for trouble with the EPA. Scarecrows? Won't work, like the bird decoys. I've heard real falcons are effective, but it isn't really feasible for me to take up falconry right now. I am in the process of reading Lesly's link (thanks ) and carlitoswhey's (thanks, too ). I think I will look into carlitos' suggestion on ebay. The units are rather expensive since we are moving so soon...but I've spent about 5 times that amount trying to get rid of these flying rats already.

If all else fails I'll take Quark's suggestion and place a stencil of a saint, of the Virgin Mary or something on my sidewalk. At the rate these birds produce I'll have a perfect replica of the stencil in bird poop and can claim a "miracle" within 48 hours.

Wow Mrs. P, I didn't realize you were entrenched in such an all-out war. I admit I would have gone postal by this time In my desperate attempt to get an idea for you I found this organization but they only have long term solutions. They also have a VERY strong focus on humane treatment and suggest the calling of PETA if this becomes a problem. I'm not so sure about that one. However, the core of the idea seems very good and appears to have worked wonderfully and permanently in parts of Europe.

They create more attactive nesting areas nearby (like five-star bird houses) in order to get the birds off the houses. Then they steal the eggs from those nests during breeding season in order to keep the population down. You might want to start the ball rolling with your local officials and this organization.....

There are also people who rehabilitate and release injured birds of prey all over the country. Perhaps you could make friends with one in your area and ask for a few releases in your back yard. Odds are the bird will look around once and stay close by for a while.


Either that or you can put a really long wire on a weed whacker and attach it to the top of your chimney. Run it each day for a while and voila!

What kinds of birds are these?

Is it the migration season for these birds?

Do you remember noticing this problem when you bought the place? Maybe the future owner won't notice either. Sellers' senses get pretty acute when the place goes on the market. Buyer's aren't nearly as critical about the property.

Trying to control birds -- forget it. Decoys don't work (tried 'em), noise doesn't work, pellet guns will simply break windows and risk a law suit when little Johnny gets hit. Same deal with poisons. The risks outweigh the benefits, of which there are none.

Cats might help, but this sounds like an urban setting. Well, the urban setting was once natural, and the birds were there first. If not, then they are being attracted to the food supply, which isn't simply stale bread. Grass seed, garden seed and tree bugs are probably the big attractors. Maybe people in the neighborhood put out seed for the birds, as this hobby has grown over the past few years.

Hey, at least it isn't black bears thrashing through your trash or pumas snacking on neighborhood poodles. Not that I have anything against feeding neighborhood poodles to the big cats

Looks like you're stuck with the garden hose treatment. Either that or a really big tarp over the house. Saran Wrap? Hopefully, the birds will move farther south as the season progresses. Unfortunately, Vegas might be their favored wintering grounds.

I like the idea of selling the birds with the house. It's nature! How wonderful it is to wake up to the sounds of birds! The new owner can put in web cams and start a Chicks Galore site and maybe make a few bucks on the side. Combine it with cats and you get, well, you know. Birds make a great emergency food source for the survivalists out there. Squab is a delicacy in some parts of the world. Birds renew the ozone layer too! (A whopper, but what the hey, it's sales.)

We have a specific bird problem -- crows. There is a whole murder of them that flys over our neighborhood every morning and every evening, and a lot of them seem to settle in our meleluca trees in the meantime, chasing off even the hawks. However, they don't bother our house too much. We have a very protective beagle who makes very loud noises at airspace violations. Of course, there's nothing she can do to them, but the noise and threat is enough to keep them moving along, or at least force them back out into the trees.

What kind of birds? Is it a single species?

Behavior differs between species and will affect possible solutions.

I have a couple of sky-rats (aka pigeons to you bird lovers) that roost under the eaves of my house and have turned the sidewalk beneath into their personal toilet.

My solution? Get a super-soaker water gun. One of those babies that really hold a load of water and once you pump it and prime it, shoots the water out in a compressed burst.

It doesn't hurt the birds, but it does scare 'em away. Over to my neighbor's roof, but that's his problem.

Sometimes it takes repeated soakings but eventually even birds as persistently stupid as sky-rats get the idea. Cheap, non-lethal and effective. Works for me.