Before this week, I had no idea that pigeon control could control my life. My wife and I have entered into the previously unknown world of rental properties and property management, and we’re learning it involves much more than getting a tenant and collecting rents.
Since our last child moved out, we have wanted to move to a smaller, but nicer, home. Despite our grown children’s sadness at seeing their childhood home go on the market, we spent a lot of time and effort sprucing up the place to our realtor’s specifications, and hoped for the right buyer. As time passed, we hoped for any buyer. We soon realized that our beautiful home was not going to sell quickly in this depressed market. Of course, we had already located a gorgeous town home, and desperately wanted to buy it. We just needed to sell our home first.
Finally, our realtor suggested that we either drastically lower the price, or consider renting. We worked it out with our mortgage people, and thanks to some money we had stashed away, we were able to put a down payment on the town home. Fairly quickly, we found a family happy to rent our previous home. We thought we had it made.
And, then, pigeon control became a part of our life. Our rental family was nice enough. They paid their rent on time, which helped us make our mortgage payment on time. Our former neighbors never complained to us. But, they just didn’t take very good care of the house. Since they didn’t own it outright, they just let minor problems go on until they became big problems.
A couple of shingles blew off our roof during a recent thunderstorm, and instead of replacing them, or even telling us about them, our tenants just ignored it. Before long, we had a little bit of water damage in the house, and pigeons had moved into the attic. Not many pigeons, but just enough to cause a ruckus and get the attic filthy. Of course, that’s when our tenants finally called us for pigeon control.
When I went to inspect the damage and the pigeon problem, it was so gross. There were pigeon nests up there, a couple of dead pigeons, and pigeon guano everywhere. The smell was bad, and the damage was worse. I didn’t even want to think about all the tiny little mites and other bugs that might be infesting our house.
Allstate Animal Control came out and did the pigeon control for me, and they even cleaned up the mess and installed pigeon blockers. We suffered through the rest of our lease term with the renters, went back in and fixed everything up the way we like, and put the house on the market. Hopefully, this time, we’ll get buyers and not have to worry about pigeon control ever again.