First guest... ugh... bad experience

21

Yes it really works, I am told that this is an old Amish trick by some people I know from that part of the USA. Many in our part of the country do it as well and they say the Amish didn’t neither think it up first (grin).

I assume it’s because they think it’s sky? I have no idea. But the house eaves at my family’s place across the road are blue and they have no barn swallow problems where they’re blue - they instead hang out on the actual barn eaves there, which is not blue.

I don’t know if it helps with pigeons but it does in fact keep the swallows from nesting.

22

Yes I should have said that they were the first guests conscientious enough to mention it. I should have just blamed it on our first guests and made them pay! (That’s a joke. I believe in karma so I wouldn’t.)

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23

Another thought for your pigeon problem: We have solar panels on our full-time house and to keep the pigeons off of them, my husband ran a fine wire across the edges of them, so that the birds can’t land on the edges the fine wire is in the way and they can’t land on it because they’re too big and clumsy. It’s managed to keep them off for 10 years that we’ve had those panels.

If you have the ability to run a wire like that where the pigeons land. I’m not explaining it very well without pictures, though.

Edited to add a picture. This is exactly what he did around our solar panels:

shoo%20bird

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24

I’d have thought the same. :smile:

25

oh dear, your first guests sound delightful - seems to be they sense your anxiety! Don’t worry too much - I bet if they hadn’t found the loose screw, they would have loosened one! I’m pretty sure I have a screw loose…

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I found you something!

Haint Blue

Edited to add, this article claims the practice originates with the Geechee people in the US South.