How to get rid of pigeons

A little over 3 years ago I moved to a new construction home. The builder included a minimum of 6 solar panels to all the new houses. I loved the idea, and sadly the pigeons loved it too. It didn’t take long for them to be all over the place and having droppings all around the house with the multitude of pathogens and diseases that it can carry in addition to mites and lice.

Since I live in a two-story home and the houses on both sides are one-story, I could see the nests on their roofs. I couldn’t find any nests on my roof, however, they were mostly there overlooking their nests. Also, I would hear them on the roof, gutters and windows, they can make a lot of noise!

To solve this problem, my neighbor decided to install a wire mesh critter guard around his solar panels, and I decided to copy the idea and installed the wire mesh around my solar panels and my other neighbor’s. 

However, although we have gotten rid of most of them, some are still around and we will need to take additional measures. Some other effective ways of getting rid of pigeons are:

• Installing bird spikes is cheap and efficient, but it may be hard to install in some areas and don’t look great.
• Setting up a decoy or hanging reflectors to scare them. There are a lot of different decoy options and most of them look pretty good, but you may need a few of them to cover all the areas the pigeons like. You can combine it with very inexpensive reflector tapes that are very easy to install. However, it needs light to work.
• Using ultrasonic repeller or gel repellent. The ultrasonic repeller emits a high-frequency harsh noise that would scare them away once it detects motion, the problem is that it might scare your pets too. The gel repellent emits a scent that instantly sends pigeons away and it can last up to a year. You would need to apply it with a caulking gun, and be careful because it can be messy! 
• Setting up a bird trap, but you would only trap one or two at a time and would need to deal with them afterwards.
• Installing an automatic water jet. Although this option is meant for backyards and gardens and does not differentiate between pigeons, pets or people.

Pigeon pests can be very unpleasant, and you will probably need to combine different solutions to eradicate them from your home. Ideally you would want your neighbors to do the same, so they leave the area.

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