A house in Soi Udomsuk on Sunthornvinitchai Road has been known as the “House of Pigeons” for more than a decade.
However, the owner, Weerasak Sunthornjamorn, 60, was not loved by his neighbours and passersby due to a massive number of birds roosting on electrical wires outside his house and huge piles of droppings in and around the area.
After retirement last year, Weerasak became a scavenger and kept what he found in garbage dumps at his house.
The piles of garbage combined with the birds and their droppings made his house a foul-smelling eyesore to his neighbours, the public and nearby restaurant owners.
His neighbours have complained many times to Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA)’s Huay Kwan district office since 2012. Weerasak was summonsed to the district office and initially fined Bt500. The fine reportedly increased to Bt2,000 as he failed to stop feeding the birds and other animals.
The BMA failed to solve the issue until a user on the popular Pantip discussion forum posted photos and a story about the house. The user complained that the house and the bird droppings sent a strong smell through the area and asked authorities to fix the problem.
The posting drew massive comments, mostly against Weerasak. After that the BMA sent a team to clean the area.
Sucheep Areeprachapirom, chief of Huay Kwang district office said that he asked Weerasak if the workers could clean his house and told him to stop feeding the birds.
“The man however has still kept mum on the request. I will continue to negotiate with him as it is a sensitive issue,” Sucheep said.
Methipot Chatametakul, a director of the BMA’s Sanitation Office said that his office had already sprayed an antiseptic substance in and around the house and used repellent gels to prevent birds from returning to the house.
Neighbours were urged to wear masks and close windows for sanitation reasons.
It was reported that Weerasak won a case in an Administrative Court three years ago when a complainer sought a court order to stop him feeding birds.
Weerasak told reporters that he has been an animal lover for a long time and was previously a committee member of animal welfare organisations.
“Today, I agreed that the BMA workers could clean my house to make all parties concerned happy. I now have some money so I will give up working as a scavenger,” he said.
He claimed he followed tradition to do merits by giving food to birds and other animals. He said if anyone thought it was dirty, they should find a place for him to take care of the animals.
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