Birds in Cincinnati, Windows That Need Cleaned, and You

The birds have started to return with the warm weather and while they are beautiful to watch from your Cincinnati windows, they do make a gross mess when they hang around a specific spot too long. They leave feathers, dropped food, and worst of all they leave their droppings.  When these droppings end up on your windows they should be cleaned off as soon as possible, as they are not only horrible to look at but they can damage the surface of your window if left there too long.

The Damage to your Cincinnati Windows

There are two reasons you need to clean up bird droppings as soon as you can after you find them.  First, bird droppings include a chemical called uric acid.  Like other acids, this one eats away at the surface it is on, so if left alone it can cause irreversible damage the vinyl, paint, wood or aluminum around your window.

Old bird droppings can also lead to damaged glass.  Once bird droppings dry on Cincinnati windows they become abrasive and your efforts to remove them moves them across the glass surface scratching the glass as they get moved.

Cleaning Up Cincinnati Windows

The first thing you need to do to clean bird droppings from your Cincinnati windows is to soften them.  You can do this by taking your hose and spray the area down with as much pressure as the area can withstand without causing additional damage.

Next, take a squeegee or a window scraper and scrape off as much of the droppings as you can.  Don’t scrape all the way down the window when you do this either; scrape through the area with the droppings and then away from the window.  This will limit the contact the droppings will have across the glass while you are cleaning.

Hose the area down again, and repeat the spraying and the scraping until most of the droppings are gone.  Finally, spray the area with window cleaner and finish cleaning it up.

Never, ever start this process with window cleaner.  Doing so will leave you with scratched glass and droppings that are now just spread around the area instead of cleaned up

Protecting Your Cincinnati Windows in the Future

If birds are perching above your Cincinnati windows and leaving constant messes for you, there are ways to encourage them to move on to a new spot.  The easiest way is to spread a special sticky gel where the birds perch.  Birds don’t like the feel of this gel on their feet and definitely not on their undersides, so they won’t stick around very long after finding their favorite perching spot is no longer ideal.

You can also install bird spikes on the perch like they do on traffic lights and street lights in the larger cities to discourage perching.  The spikes aren’t harmful; they just make it so there is not enough room for birds find a comfortable perch.