Vacant property guano removal

When the SafeSite Security Solutions team were deployed to a property in a London borough last month, little did they know of what lay ahead.

The brief

In a project described as their ‘biggest ever guano job’, five vacant Council masionettes – owned by proprietors Mallais –   had been left derelict, dilapidated and leaking. Over a five year period, these had become pickled in aspic and slipped into a state of disrepair. The windows had been left open to ventilate and cool the property. Logical, yes, but also short sighted.             A veritable army of pigeons took a fancy to the property and promptly infiltrated every available orifice from head to foot. You can only imagine the scale of the carnage awaiting our team of experts when they arrived on site tasked with the clean up.

The solution

Gordon Todd, Contracts Manager at SafeSite Security Solutions, takes up the story: “Before going there, our guys had set everything up with our client from a legal standpoint with all the relevant certifications and paperwork. We didn’t need any specific qualifications for this project. We just had to make sure the client with happy with our accreditations and level of expertise.

He continued :”The team had some extra Maskfit training. We basically instructed the guys how to use the equipment. The guys had suits, gloves, boots and other PPE and were taught how to use them.  There’s no point in giving them all the gear but with no idea.
“We quoted the client for nine days from arrival to completion. The team always like to give a bit of leeway as we’re never quite sure how long a job will take until we actually start it. We were one of three quotes and would have stopped after nine days had we not completed it by then as that’s what we quoted them for.
“SafeSite sent a minimum of two operatives, and a maximum of four, on site at any one time to ensure we had enough manpower for the project.”

The process

The removal of pigeon guano is dangerous work due to the chemicals and bacteria within it. These include:

• Candidiasis – this is a kind of fungus or yeast infection that’s spread by pigeons.
• This disease results from the fungus which grows in dried bird droppings.
• More commonly referred to as food poisoning, salmonellosis can be traced back to bird guano.
• E-coli. This infection is one of the most common caused by enteric bacteria.
• Parasites, ticks, and mice.

The removal process began by spraying the guano with chemicals to neutralise it and make the area safe to work in. The team then utilised industrial sized scrapers to comb the property inch-by-inch, removing every trace of the guano. From there, it is placed in a container professionally and clinically disposed of by our expert teams. After removal, we jet washed the site and then sprayed it again.

Seventeen 60-litre buckets were filled with over 600kg of guano, over half a tonne.  This was a project of size and stature never before dealt with by a SafeSite team.

Gordon added: “We gave daily updates to the client with photos and a summary of that day’s work. For us, this is a really important part of what we do as we can liaise with them. It shows how the project is coming along and how the team are doing. It gives the client confidence in us.”

The outcome

The job was performed in eight days, one fewer than quoted by the team. The client was very happy with the work we did. As a result, the property can now be refurbished and tenanted for use. The birds and their chicks were removed from the property and were taken to a local rescue centre.