Birds

Birds

Birds can contaminate buildings and pavements with their droppings and keep us from our sleep with their constant noise. Our houses are contaminated and the carefully built image of your company is destroyed with a couple of well targeted droppings. Few people know that it is possible to resolve bird nuisance, which is why these problems are often simply accepted for years.

However, this is not necessary, because the Plagen Preventie Dienst has the perfect solution for your bird problem.

Pigeons
Birds are beautiful creatures that can bring us great joy under normal circumstances. However, if they live too close to humans, in too great numbers, they can cause a lot of nuisance and contamination and cause a serious health risk. The bewildered feral pigeons in particular are a major problem in many cities with regard to this. They mainly breed in urban areas because they’ll find everything they need there. In places where a lot of people come, there always is plenty of food and, in addition, there are plenty of dry, high places in the city where pigeons can settle without being bothered. In addition to bewildered pigeons, starlings, house sparrows, herring gulls and jackdaws can also cause nuisance. Through their droppings (14 kg per pigeon per year) pigeons and other birds can spread all kinds of diseases (such as Ornithosis and paratyphoid) and they can carry parasites such as mites and ticks. In their nests, all kinds of pests can exist (moths, flies, carpet beetles, dust lice). Plenty of reasons to fend-off and exterminate these pests.

Prevention
The method to permanently keep pigeons or other birds off buildings and other structures is affixing inhibition systems made especially for this purpose. The most used systems are included in one of the following categories:

Pin systems
Wire systems
Electrical systems
Net systems

These control systems are applied to roofs, roof edges, facades, window frames, signboards, neon signs and other places where birds cause nuisance, to prevent them from being able to land and / or settle. The system used depends on various factors. The bird species is important in the decision on what control system is to be used, as is the purpose for which the birds use the object to be protected; as a lookout, a resting place during the day, a sleeping place or a nesting facility. This is called to so-called load resistance. Your EWS advisor will carry out a thorough inspection and inventory on site to determine what system will be effective.

In addition to applying control systems, the situation on site is important as well. Clean terrains are less interesting to birds and of course the birds should never be fed.

Driving off
When large groups of starlings (mainly in the winter) use buildings, transmission towers etc as a sleeping place it is possible to use audio records of screaming and bangs and light flashes to drive off the birds. When this method is applied a number of consecutive days in a professional manner, it can be extremely effective. You can also turn to EWS for advice about acoustic bird control.

Control
In certain situation, active bird prevention, preferably combined with control measures can be a good solution. In this, the birds are captured with cages or shooting nets or killed off under certain circumstanced.

Cellar fungus

The cellar fungus often grows in areas with moist or wet conditions such as groundwork, rising damp or leaking sewer systems or roofs. The cellar fungus grows rapidly and affects both softwood and hardwood. Wood species of sustainability class I are not affected, class II rarely. Because of the consistently high humidity in crawling spaces, these areas are easily affected, as are roof structures in case of leakage.

Spores
The spores of the cellar fungus sprout quickly in favourable conditions, after which the fungal threads, called hyphen, penetrate the wood. These hyphen have a diameter between 0.0005 and 0.005 mm and are not visible to the naked eye. Initially, the hyphen are white. On the wood surface, mycelium, entangled hyphae are rarely formed. In some places, for instance under linoleum and behind plinths, a thin degradation can be visible similar to that of dry rot. If mycelium develops on the surface of wood or stone, this only consists of thin hyphen of 1 to 2 mm that branch out in a fan-shaped manner and that look like roots or vines and have a dark brown to black colour. Fruiting bodies are rarely found in buildings. Initially it consists of an ochre coloured thin plate of about 3 mm, which later turns olive brown, with an irregular shape, covered with small nodules. It may vary in size from several centimetres to over 50 cm in diameter. The edge remains yellowish white. The spores created by the fruiting body, are dark brown, oval and very small, with a length of 0.008 to 0.0013 mm and a diameter of 0.005 to 0.009 mm. They spread through the airflow or insects, which completes the cycle.

Fungus
The cellar fungus is family of the brown rot inducing fungi. The degradation of cellulose and hermicellulose, destroys the walls of the wood cells. At first, the wood has a dark discolouration that can turn almost black in an advanced stage. Characteristic are the cracks that run in the fibre direction of the wood. This is often visible in smaller wood, such as in windows and frames, whereas in larger wood, such as beams cracks will also be visible, perpendicular to the fibre direction, causing cube-shaped elements similar to the damage caused by dry rot, but less sharply defined.

Internal deposits
Another important characteristic of the cellar fungus is the interior deterioration of the wood, in which a thin layer of 3 to 4 mm of healthy wood remains in tact at the surface. Even in an advanced stage, often just a small deviation and discolouration of the surface is the only signal that the wood has been affected by cellar fungus. For non-experts, the cellar fungus is hard to identify.

Growth

Cellar fungus

Not only because of the germination of the spores can wood be affected by cellar fungus, but also by hyphen of previously inflicted damage. Cellar fungus affects wood with a moisture level of 40 to 60% with an optimum of more than 50% In 21 degrees it develops the fastest, and in 35 degrees it still shows minor growth. In 0 degrees the growth stops, but even -30 degrees won’t kill it. For a treatment against cellar fungus or other fungi, please contact the EWS.