I Am Pigeon Man: part 1

by Pat Devine

part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

I’ve put out a hit on my noisy neighbors. Sort of.

For well over a year the crawlspace above my apartment has been home to a growing number of pigeons. The pigeon, known by some as the flying rat, has shown none of the courtesies required in the common rental agreement. They leave their feathers, excrement, and even afterbirth wherever they damn well please and they have no regard whatsoever for quiet hours. They have taken over every square inch of the other side of my ceiling and they are driving me crazy.

While the beaver is considered the engineer of the animal world, the pigeon should be awarded the title of obsessive-compulsive interior designer. It’s astonishing just how much rearranging these birds do. Everyday I hear them rolling rocks and dragging branches. I swear there are times it sounds like they are moving two-by-fours and I can’t imagine what it could be.

The noise, of course, is not limited to home improvement. There’s the scratching and scampering sound of their vile little red claws on drywall. Then there’s the coo-ing, the chirping of the babies (yes, there are babies) and the flapping of wings—something I’ve learned they do while copulating (yes, there are babies).

According to the Encarta encyclopedia, there are 309 different species of pigeon, belonging to the taxonomic family Columbidae. Pigeons are arranged into four subfamilies. My neighbors (or are they roommates?) are the common city pigeons often known as carrier or homing pigeons. They descended from the rock dove of Europe. They’re raised as racing pigeons, messengers and for meat. Mmmm ... pigeon meat.

According to a company advertising its services for pigeon removal, the pigeons live in communal flocks. They usually mate for life and their lifespan ranges from five to fifteen years.

I live in the Equestrian District of Glendale. There are hundreds of horses in the area and their manure lines the roads. Depending on the weather this is either quaint or wretched, but I’m sure it’s quite inviting to the pigeons. My apartment building looks like a motel, U-shaped with a pool in the middle. My unit is on the inside corner of the second floor.

The first indication I had a pigeon problem came about two years ago. As I ascended the stairs a bird that had nested in the rafters buzzed me. It wasn’t long, though, before he buzzed the wrong guy and his home was gone. But he didn’t quit and he tried a different strategy, which is the exact opposite reaction to a problem that my team has offered.

I don’t recall the first time I actually heard pigeons above my ceiling. I know it was in my living room and I thought for sure they were just on the walled air conditioner. It was such a tiny slice of the corner of my apartment though it didn’t really bother me. It wasn’t long, though, before, like the rest of Glendale, they had extended family living there.

Once a week a maintenance worker comes by the complex and rinses the hallways. I spoke to him about the growing pigeon problem and he agreed it was getting bad. His response of course was not to spring to action. Rather he told me I should call the office so that the office could send the maintenance team a work order. Then the work order would be filled in the order it was received. And so began phase two of my pigeon problem, which is to say phase one of my human problem.

I am in an interspecies battle for real estate supremacy and I don’t like my team.

At times these two species have worked together. The carrier pigeon was used for centuries to deliver messages of great importance during wars and peace. As a child growing up in New York, Mike Tyson soothed his fears and rage for hours at a time tending to his pigeon coop.

While the animal kingdom seems mostly to have suffered in the last century, this breed of pigeon has prospered by adapting. They didn’t cling to some primitive vision of fresh air and nature. Cities suit them just fine and if you’ve ever visited a city zoo the thought may have crossed your mind that if those majestic but caged beasts were more like the 300 pigeons following you around then maybe they wouldn’t be so “endangered.”

While the pigeon and man have lived together for centuries, I’d always assumed it was on man’s terms. Despite the pigeon’s ability to fly and his resilience in a changing world I’d taken it for granted that, if it ever came down to it, man could beat the pigeon using either brains or brawn. We have complex language skills, an advanced banking system, we can even kind of fly now—I could go on and on. I mean, we have thumbs. THUMBS!

Forgive the sports analogy, but the better team on paper does not always win, and when it comes to the battle for the space above my apartment, and in fact the whole apartment complex, the pigeons have not only been winning, it’s been a blowout. A slow-moving bureaucracy based on a division of labor where the left hand doesn’t know or care what the right hand is doing has been no match for the scrappy pigeon and his communal flock. The pigeon has simply “wanted it more.”

Since I placed my first call to management, very little has been done. A few holes were covered. Other than that the silence, as they say, has been deafening. Except for the growing noise from the pigeons. I’d still see the maintenance guy during the week and we’d have the same conversation. He’d ask if the pigeon problem had improved and I’d tell him no. Then he’d tell me to call the office again. “Keep after them. You pay your rent. That’s not right.”

But like the management team, I too am human. When it comes to dealing with a bureaucracy I’m a sprinter, not a long distance runner. I get outraged and angry, make a few calls and then I’m spent. I give it time to see if anything happens, then pretend there’s not a problem, then feel defeated, then get angry all over again and place a polite call to “check in” or suggest a strategy. And that’s the way it’s been for a long time here on Sesame Street.

Until this past March. That’s when I started to want it more. That’s when I adapted. That’s when I went pigeon on management.

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