In article ,
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Paul Mc Cann wrote:

I have a small attic with a wooden (tongue and groove) floor
where birds have been nesting for some time,
and have left their deposits fairly widely over the floor.
I'm wondering about the best way to clean the floor.
Any advice or suggestions gratefully received.

The bakery trade use a metal scraper on a long handle like a brush for
cleaning the floor of pieces of pastry etc. If you could borrow one of
these it might be ideal. (I'm assuming the droppings are dry)

Thanks for the suggestion.
I thought some sort of scraper on a broom-handle might do the trick,
but I don't recall ever seeing such a thing.

I don't think hacking something together would be very effective as the
flexible metal blade of the scraper has to be forced flat against the
floor to ensure it doesn't catch on any proturbances. It might be
difficult to get a good connection between the handle and the scraper.

If hands and knees are not out of the question a heavy duty Skarsten
scraper which is used in a pulling rather than a pushing motion might do
it. Windmill Leisure and Marine used to carry them, or some of the other
chandlers/marine suppliers, Western Marine in Bulloch Harbour etc. may
have one

Follow up with a deck brush, hot water and detergent/disinfectant mix.

Someone suggested a steam cleaner,
but I'm not really sure what this is, or how it could be applied.


Don't like the sound of a steam cleaner. If the droppings are dry it is
probably best not to wet them until the excess is cleared.

ISTR that dry bird droppings can metamorphose into
unpleasant/nast/unhygienic dust so a good dust mask probably would not
go astray.

snip

--
Paul Mc Cann

Paul Mc Cann wrote:

ISTR that dry bird droppings can metamorphose into
unpleasant/nast/unhygienic dust so a good dust mask probably would not
go astray.

Thanks for all your advice.

It is amazing the quantity of droppings that can accumulate
with a few birds in a couple of years.
Every time I went to cut off their entry it turned out they were nesting
and the children objected to their being expelled.

--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland