This Person's Battle With a Pigeon Family Is Better Than a Soap Opera
Updated July 29 2018, 12:17 p.m. ET
Man versus nature: the eternal struggle. Who does this Earth belong to? More specifically, who does this house belong to? One person is amusing everyone with their personal battle against some feathered interlopers.
Imgur user atomicrabbit2 shared a collection of photos taken over the course of four years that shows how determined some birds were to make a home on atomicrabbit2's house. No matter what they did to plug up holes and cover their exhaust pipe, the pigeons triumphed.
"We bought a new house. This house had a nice gas fireplace and the exhaust was tucked neatly away near the back door. The problem was, the little nook appeared to be a perfect place for birds to nest because of the protection of the roof and heat from the fireplace," they wrote.
The first incident of birds squatting on the property took place in August 2014.
"The first time I noticed the little guys, they caught me off guard, but I thought nothing of it," atomicrabbit2 wrote. "They were just trying to keep warm, I figured. They startled easily and flew away whenever I would walk in/out of my back door, which scared the sh-- outta me. At first I ignored it, but they started [pooping] and building a nest INSIDE the exhaust."
The following spring, atomicrabbit2 decided they'd had enough of birds in the exhaust and decided to cover the pipe with chicken wire. Case closed...or so they thought.
Just months later, a nest was discovered.
"They found a nice little crevice on top of the exhaust to build a neat, little nest. Ok fine. No babies, so nest is gone. Easy enough."
The birds returned of course, the very next day.
Our poster cleared them out again and they didn't seem to return for the rest of the season. Triumph!
But no. The following year, the birds were back. And this time, they came with a vengeance.
The next plan of bird defense was far more complicated:
"So I added bird spikes on top (iteration 2) which I figured would keep them out for good. NOPE. Those little f---s came back with a vengeance. It not only didn't keep them away, but the spikes seemed to stabilize their nest. This time they brought colored twine! I cleaned out the nest, and next day they came back with more blue twine. Cleaned it out, and THEY CAME BACK AGAIN WITH MORE GD TWINE.. They must have had a f--kin' stock pile somewhere."
They decided to solve this problem in a very reasonable way: by adding MORE spikes.
And nature's response was, obviously, to send more birds over to the spiky cage mess.
This time, atomicrabbit2 decided to take it all the way to the top — with chicken wire:
But somehow the birds STILL found a way in.
Atomicrabbit2 writes, "So apparently, I left a small opening on the right side. Those birds were flying up into their now high-end GATED F--KING COMMUNITY!
After intense frustration, the poster decided he could only fight birds with other birds. Atomicrabbit2 installed an owl statue named Dr. Who, and those pigeons cleared out real fast.
The moral of the story? Don't bring chicken wire to a bird fight.
