That’s exactly the sound coming from both the hubby and I almost all morning. The growling sound had been emitted from us since a couple of weeks ago. And every morning, in the wee hours just before everyone wakes up and go to work, we would be laying on our bed, growling away. Well, most of the time, I did this cos the hubby’s off to work by 6.45am every morning.
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Every single morning, since the past month, there has been the annoying sound of scurrying and cooing and sometimes squawking coming from our roof. We live in the top floor of a 5-storey apartment and above our ceiling, is the roof.
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At first, it scared the living daylights out of me and I thought it was a bunch of scampering rats. But then again, rats don’t screech like some kind of banshee, so I erased that possibility. Then, we all agreed that it’s probably the pigeons, fighting with each other. How they got into the space between the roof and the ceiling, I have no idea.
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At first, the sound of scurrying was still at an acceptable level. As the days go by, the noise above the ceiling got more annoying and the other night, the hubby got so pissed off cos we were not able to get any sleep and he started hushing them and using the broom to hit the ceiling. Yeah, it was way BEYOND annoyance. More likely like driving us up the wall.
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My guess was that the pigeons were probably frolicking around. Maybe a couple of them up there. But I did not want them to build a nest or worse, lay eggs!
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Our ultimate level of tolerance for all that noisy racket was broken this morning when we were rudely awakened by the consistent clawing sound against the ceiling. I was totally MAD!!!
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But when I took a deep breath before cursing the merciless pigeons, a kind thought arise in my mind. What if the pigeon was injured? What if it could not fly? What if the injured pigeon who could not fly and could not get out and feed itself? It could die of injury, or worse, hunger!!!
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So, with that kind thought, I decided to forgive this forsaken pigeon and vowed to go up the roof, once and for all…to rescue this poor pigeon.
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As soon as it was late enough for everyone to be up, we went knocking on our neighbour’s door to borrow their ladder. Equipped with an emergency light and a torchlight (we need it cos it’s really dark up there), a dustpan (it was the hubby’s idea, to pick up the ‘injured’ pigeon) and a pail (that’s my idea, to put the bird into it without harming it and of course, I don’t really like the idea of holding a bird who could be struggling and fluttering its wings), we braved the dark and smelly roof.
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All I could say is, it was dark, dusty and stank of rats’ poo and whatever that hangs around in roof tops. Pooh! As soon as we reached the top, the hubby started sneezing like nobody’s business. We shone the light and LO BEHOLD,were TWO pigeons, not one, huddled together at the end of the roof. They were both staring at us with frightened eyes. The hubby tried to go near them but at the sound of a LOUD CRACK , he stopped moving. He actually stepped one feet on the ceiling and broke the ceiling!!! Luckily, his other feet was on one of the wooden beams, otherwise, he’d fallen down into our room!
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Apparently, the pigeons were huddled to the most corner end of the roof, the part which slanted downwards. The space between the roof and the ceiling was almost as narrow as one feet. TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the hubby to reach the pigeons. So, he found a long stick on the floor, probably left by some construction worker when they built the apartment and started poking at the pigeons, hoping they would try to fly out.
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Then, I realized that the pigeons had nowhere to fly out and got the hubby to try to open the roof tiles. He slipped two piece of the roof tiles and bright sunlight penetrated into that dark space above our ceiling. I gave a loud shriek when I saw some skeletal remains of a pigeon on the floor next to the hubby. No wonder there was such a terrible stench! A dead bird! Above my ceiling! The body of the pigeon had rotted into bones and just some feathers. EEEEEWWWWW!!! So gross that I wanted to gag.
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However, our mission had not completed yet. The hubby continued poking the stick near the pigeons and I was back in our room, hitting the ceiling to scare them a little so they would fly out through the opened roof. A couple of minutes passed and after soon frantic attempts, the pigeons did not move at all.
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So, Plan B. The hubby came down the opening of the ceiling and the roof, and waited to see if the pigeon would at least, try to go near the opening. After five minutes, he came down. I did not want to give up so easily, so I took his place and stood at the top of the ladder, hiding and waiting to see if they would try to escape into the open air.
. . .
Another 8 - 10 minutes gone by. No sign of the pigeons in view. I was hot. The sun was getting warmer. I was sweating like a pig and it was not a nice experience, skulking on top of the ladder, breathing the stench of a dead bird and watching the speckles of dust floating in the line of the ray from the opened roof.
. . .
We finally gave up trying to rescue the darned pigeons. Probably they didn’t want any rescuing. Probably, they were happy where they were. So, the hubby went up again and pulled the roof tiles back into place and closed the opening to the roof in our ceiling.
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A couple of minutes later, we heard the oh-ever-so-familiar scurrying and scraping noise of their claws again.
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Darned pigeons! They’re probably laughing at us right now, mocking our kind, but unsuccessful attempt.
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So, we gotta learn to live with them. Harmoniously. BLEH! All the hard work and the broken ceiling. I just hope they don’t starve to death up there. I don’t want more dead birds up in my ceiling!
