Living in the coo-coo nest

IT is not a coo. It is more like a wooooooooh. Or a wruuuuuuuuuh. Repeated over and over and over again in a mind-numbing monotone about as pleasant as a snore.

The sound oozes effortlessly through stucco walls and double-pane windows, and it starts like clockwork with the first rays of sunshine, right outside my bedroom window.

Woooooooh. Woooooooooh. Woooooooh. Pause. Wooooooh. Woooooooh.

For the record, I never liked pigeons.

They’re not much to look at and not particularly gracious in flight. But as long as they kept their distance, I didn’t mind them much either. I took the occasional splatter on my freshly washed car as a random act of an ungracious bird. Nothing personal.

But this ... this is personal.

My wife and I bought our dream house for $910,000 in one of the fastest-appreciating ZIP Codes in Torrance this spring: four bedrooms with plenty of backyard for our two dogs. The elementary school our daughter will attend in three years is conveniently across the street.

It is perfect, except for one thing. The pigeons seem to think so too.

The first morning, I tried to shoo them away. They must have felt protected by the window screen because they didn’t budge an inch. I plied the screen off and waved like a madman. They looked annoyed. So did my wife, who shielded herself under the covers.

After a little more arm-waving and shouts, the birds flew off. A couple of minutes later, they were back.

So it started, my ongoing quest to rid our new house of the pesky creatures.

So far, I’ve plunked down more money than I care to calculate, risked life and limb and even had a run-in with the law.

The sound-reducing double-pane windows went up first. They look nice and I can barely hear the traffic now, but they do little to block the bird chatter.

Out of frustration, I went to a sporting goods store and bought a BB gun. I found the weakest pump-action pistol available -- a clear plastic piece with a bright red tip. I tested the round plastic BBs against a piece of cardboard box. The BBs bounced off with barely a scratch.

Satisfied that I wouldn’t hurt the little beasts, I began my own negative-reinforcement therapy.

I am no ornithologist, but I figured if I bothered the pigeons enough they’d stop bothering me. Big mistake.

After about a week of shooting mostly air and roof tiles -- the latter startled the birds enough to make them fly, and so did hitting one of them -- a very disapproving passerby caught me in the act. After a brief, not very neighborly exchange, she called the cops.

The officer arrived, gun in one hand, barking orders: “Put your hands behind your head. Turn around. Spread your legs.” And there, in front of my dream house, assuming the position like a common thug, it was clear the birds were winning.

They must have known it too. As I spread my legs, hands over my head, I could see the pigeons looking at me, their little heads cocking side to side, and their beady red eyes laughing.

“Shooting BB guns is illegal in the city of Torrance,” the agitated officer told me.

“Well, the stores sell them,” I said sheepishly.

“It is not illegal to buy them,” he explained.

I wanted to reply, “Oh! I see the logic,” but sarcasm was unlikely to help.

The officer suggested I find another solution, something less likely to offend the animal lovers in the neighborhood. “Try the Internet or call animal control,” he said as he drove off.

So I tried the Internet.

Apparently, bird control is a booming industry. I found several companies selling products designed to deter feathered pests, from $600 ultrasonic bird repellers to $60 fake owls.

I decided on the fake owl. For good measure I also bought 5 gallons of Bird Proof, a glue-like product that is supposed to make surfaces uncomfortably sticky for the birds.

I climbed 30 feet to my chimney on a very unstable ladder, holding onto the rungs for dear life with one hand and clutching the fake owl with the other. The owl had a scary-looking plastic head -- it startled my wife when she opened the box -- spreadable wings and a paper pouch that is supposed to sway with the winds, giving the owl a more realistic look.

As soon as I perched the owl near the chimney, a flock of pigeons scattered off the roof. It was a beautiful sight. Like being in the Olympics, except the flying birds actually meant something.

They were gone just long enough for me to climb down the ladder. I watched in exasperation as one by one, they realized the owl was no threat. One actually perched itself three feet from it.

I moved on to the glue. With a spray pump, I applied huge globs of it all over the roof tiles under my bedroom window, under the eaves above my garage and everywhere else I could reach. My roof looked like a giant swamp monster had spit on it, but I didn’t care.

The glue worked with about half of the pigeons. The other half seemed actually to appreciate the added traction. Of course, now their droppings also stick to the roof, something the label conveniently forgot to mention. Now my roof looks like someone threw up on it.

Almost out of options, I called Torrance Animal Control.

The agency suggested fake owls. “Tried that.”

How about metal spikes or barbed wire on the roof? “Well, I was hoping for a solution that didn’t make my house look like a prison camp.”

Call an exterminator was the final suggestion.

“Have you tried those fake owls?” the exterminator asked. I told him I’d tried everything. Everything except poisoning them, he said.

For a measly $75, $15 more than the owl, he would scatter deadly poisoned corn on my roof and that would rid me of the birds for good.

“Is that legal?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

Just in case, I checked with animal control and the state’s Structural Pest Control Board.

Indeed, a licensed exterminator can kill pigeons in California. “They are not a protected species, sir,” the board representative said.

The exterminator said he would toss a handful of the kernels on the roof, away from the edges so that they wouldn’t drop where my dogs or my daughter could come across them.

But what about other birds or squirrels? The state official and the city animal control officer assured me I would not be liable should other animals ingest the poison. Mainly because it is the exterminator who is doing it, and also because it is only against the law to endanger animals on the state or federal lists of protected species. The latter is unlikely to come foraging for corn on my Torrance roof, the state official said.

Well, I wonder how the animal lovers in my neighborhood would feel about that.

My wife is skittish about killing the pigeons, and I’m not sure if I’m all that comfortable with the idea either.

Maybe I could just train my brain to block out the noise like those people who live near train tracks.

In the meantime, my house bears the scars of my ordeal. The roof is an unsightly mess and the emasculated owl still prowls without a purpose.

The other day, I ran into my neighbor as he chatted with my wife on his driveway. He was holding his year-old daughter, looking up at the owl.

“Those things don’t work,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“But my daughter seems to like it,” he said. “She points at it all the time, and she says, ‘Woo, woo.’ ”