Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110

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Historic monument so full of pigeon mess, cleaners have to force doors open!

Cleaners tasked with removing several years' build-up of pigeon droppings from the interior of historic monument Landgate Arch in Rye, East Sussex, had to force the doors open to gain entry, such was the volume of faeces inside.

The team from CountyClean Environmental Services, ended up having to remove more than two dozen metric tonnes of bird droppings from the site and the company's managing director Mike Walker, says that although they'd removed other massive blockages before, they'd never had to face such a monumental mass of festering faeces.

"The build up behind the doors was so big we had to force the doors open," he says. "Once inside, it was like walking on a giant chocolate cake and the smell was awful - even through a facemask.

"The floors of the towers and the steps leading to the top were swamped with 25 tonnes of pigeon mess. We filled our tanker several times over."
Had the pigeon droppings not been removed, they would have continued to build up and cause structural damage to the towers. The content is acidic and can damage stonework.

"Whilst we've removed other massive blockages such as giant fatbergs in sewers, we have never seen such a monumental mass of festering faeces before."

There is no public access to the towers of the building, which dates back to the year 1340. The build-up of bird droppings has happened behind locked doors and when owner Rother District Council, discovered the build-up of dropping, it arranged for specialist contractor CountyClean Environmental Services to clean up the mess using a custom built combination tanker. The tanker provides high pressure jetting and can simultaneously suck up the waste and water.

www.countycleanenvironmental.co.uk

5th March 2015