How are birds and pests kept out of a public building?

Pigeons in a roof space, bats in an eave, rats in a ceiling and wasps in a soffit are all the same problem: a gap somebody left open.

On a school or a community building the consequence is a health and amenity issue in an occupied space, which is why proofing belongs in the scope of works rather than in a later pest contract.

Close the entry points

**Eaves and gable vents** meshed with a material that will last, fixed rather than wedged.

**Weepholes** in masonry fitted with proprietary covers that allow drainage and exclude vermin, since weepholes are the single most common rodent entry into a cavity.

**Roof and ridge junctions,** including the gap under ridge capping and at the ends of corrugated sheeting, which is the standard pigeon entry.

**Service penetrations,** the gaps left where a pipe, a conduit or a duct passes through a wall or a ceiling. The most common of all, and almost always the work of an earlier trade rather than an original defect.

**Sub-floor vents,** meshed without blocking the ventilation that the space needs.

**Door seals** at ground level, because a gap under an external door is an open route.

Each of these is cheap at the time the access is already in place and expensive as a return visit, which is why the proofing is done while the scaffold or the roof access is up, per [roof replacement on an occupied building](/answers/roof-replacement-on-an-occupied-building).

Remove the reason, not just the route

**Nesting ledges,** where the design allows, treated with angled infills or proprietary deterrents rather than left as a perch.

**Water,** including blocked gutters and standing water in pits, which attracts rather than houses.

**Food sources,** which on a school means the bin store and the canteen interface. A proofed building with an open bin area still has a pest problem, which is why [bin stores and waste enclosures](/answers/bin-stores-and-waste-enclosures) is part of the same conversation.

**Vegetation touching the building,** which is a bridge over every ground level control, and which sits with [tree protection on construction sites](/answers/tree-protection-on-construction-sites) when the planting is retained.

Protected species change the method

Several bird species and all bat species are protected, and some are in occupied roosts in older public buildings.

Which means the work cannot simply exclude them. The sequence is identification first, then advice on timing, because excluding a protected species during breeding is both an offence and a worse outcome inside the building.

On any building with an established roost, that assessment happens before the proofing is programmed, and it feeds into the environmental controls described in [environmental controls on a construction site](/answers/environmental-controls-on-a-construction-site).

Clean before you close

Sealing a roof space with years of accumulated droppings inside it creates a contaminated void above an occupied classroom.

So the sequence is clear the space, clean and treat it, then proof it. Dried bird droppings carry a respiratory risk, which makes the clean a controlled activity with respiratory protection rather than a general tidy, and the dust controls are the ones in [dust control near occupied spaces](/answers/dust-control-near-occupied-spaces).

Where it belongs in a project

In the roof and facade scope, not in a maintenance contract afterwards.

A roof replacement, a facade repair or a services upgrade opens every one of the entry points above, and closing them at that moment costs a fraction of returning with access later. The gaps left by a services upgrade are the most common cause of a new pest problem in a recently refurbished building, which is why they are checked as part of [handover documentation and operation manuals](/answers/handover-documentation-and-operation-manuals).

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