The Church is working with a University of Illinois School of Information Sciences graduate student to archive and digitize our records, some of which go back to the beginning of the Twentieth Century. From time to time, we’ll report on interesting findings from her search.

In June 1975, Anne Ehrlich, the Property Chair, addressed a “severe pigeon problem.” She communicated to other church leaders that the pigeons were roosting and nesting on and in gutters, roof and window ledges, the belfry, and the roof of the new building. Anne led the research on how to address this unpleasant and unsanitary situation. The records in the archives include correspondence with a number of exterminators, copies of magazine and newspaper articles about various means of pigeon control, and a contract with Orkin Pest Control.

Four possible solutions were considered: a set of large plastic cobras placed in the roosting/nesting places; feed that contained pigeon birth control; poison; and the one the church chose – Roost-No-More.

Roost-No-More was applied to the areas on the building where the birds settled. It’s described as a “gelatin compound that birds find disagreeable underfoot.” Instructions for application advised laying additional ribbons of the gelatinous material upon ledges and ridges, as “birds sometimes over-shoot their mark in landing and skid further in.”

The church’s contract with Orkin, dated June 23, 1975, was for $293.00 and included the material and application of Roost-No-More, and a two-year guarantee that the pigeons would leave and not return. Roost-No-More may have been chosen as the less-lethal form of bird control, though it was, perhaps, somewhat unneighborly as the birds probably just scraped off the goo and went elsewhere.