To think if you don't like seagulls don't move to the coast

[WishILivedOnAFarm]

I know i am not BU, I am just venting.

Last summer a family member of DHs's moved to their 'dream house' which is on the coast and under a minute walk to the beach. They can see the sea from almost every room. Wonderful. Gorgeous place. Large detached gardens. Idyllic. We went for their housewarming and the husband was moaning hard about the 'bloody seagulls' which are everywhere and 'fly over the house'. At one point (admittedly he was well into a bottle by then) he went out with a towel and started flapping hysterically at the seagulls flying over. Since then every time we see them or have a conversation with them on the family whatsapp etc he moans almost constantly about the seagulls and how they are doing his head in. He ranted on at our family Christmas dinner etc. We are having lunch there tomorrow and I feel like saying the above- did you not think seagulls would be at the sea? What did you expect? I know they are loud and can be noisy but the fixation on the fact they 'fly over the house' is a bit baffling.

I will confess to being a bit biased on this- I'd love to live where they do. And I don't like this family member much anyway- he's always been a bit of an arrogant 'I know best' sort.

We moved to our small seaside town 8 years ago. We are about 400 metres from the beach. The seagulls don't bother us in the slightest.

yeah, this - I've lived by the sea for over 30yrs, love the gulls. They walk around our town centre like they own it, cars slow down for them to walk out of the way.

We had a pair nest on roof in the old house for few consecutive years, total terrorists, would dive bomb us when we went into the garden and completely terrorised one of the cats. I was forever rescuing the chicks that fell off and trying to return them to a safe section of roof.

The dive bombing was annoying, but easily dealt with, either stick your arm in the air when they got close and they would go higher - or if you weren't brave enough to do that then use one of the umbrellas or walking sticks left by the back door and stick that in the air. They are basically annoying teenagers and you have to stand your ground with them.

I am bemused by anyone who MOVES to be by the sea and is surprised or annoyed that there are so many gulls.......

Actually have just remembered when DD had to camp out in her brother’s room for a few weeks as there was a gull that kept waking her up pecking at her window 😂 That’s the only time we’ve found one to be a pain.

I think you should all turn up in seagull T-shirts and accessories. Seagull bag, seagull earrings, seagull socks, seagull badges, seagull sticker on the car…

Gulls are actually endangered and slightly condemned by their intelligence.

They are incredibly easy to accidentally tame. A relative of mine lives near someone that feeds them, so the gulls are bold enough to wander in to the kitchen, tap at windows for food etc

they also live a long time so there's a chance that the ones you fed as a kid 12 years ago are still knocking about, and even only the child of the ones we all fed in the 90s before we realised that they got overly bold.

Even now people spend a lot of time trying to convince them to eat from their hand, but then the next person looks surprised when they swoop and take it when they weren't expecting it

There's also fun research which shows gulls are able to recognise easy targets via racial profiling, gender etc and possibly even accents

I sort of agree except seagulls are greedy fuckers and they’ll go where the food is, which is why Bath - not a coastal city - is mobbed by them.

Yes honestly!

Oh that's a good idea. He was talking for a while about getting a bird scarer and putting it on his roof, but apparently his neighbours objected hard due to the noise.

I've told DH I'm not up to it but he thinks it's too late to cancel without being crashingly rude as they have probably already got food in. Maybe if I go with solutions it will be more palatable for me.

(A solution other than me moving in to his house, making friends with the seagull family and having them sit on my bed).

I live 40 miles from the sea and still get woken up by them at about 5 o'clock in the summer.
I do like them though, what I don't like are people who feed them.

YANBU but tbf some of the ones round here are bigger than my neighbours cat! Love the idea of your pompous oaf relative flapping a tea towel at them for daring to fly over his house, daft bugger. I have no problem with them flying over our house but hate when they rip open bin bags on bin day (we don’t have wheelie bins here, just black bags outside our houses).

I hope he doesn't own a chihuahua.
Or - he could move to Malta. I've been on holiday here for a week and not seen a single seagull.

Buy him a seagull ornament for the garden

Sounds like your relative is overreacting - of course they'll be flying around! But... I'm very close to sea and whilst I don't object to gulls per se and know to watch for them diving for seafront chips at certain time of year, when they are nesting on your roof and defending their babies they can be quite aggressive during the summer - I dread a baby falling into our garden for that reason.

Laughing at the vision of your relative trying to scare the gulls away with a tea towel......let us know if that works.

Were the gulls not in evidence when he viewed the house?

t

Totally with you. Though my sister lives by the sea and there’s always about a month where they actually can’t have the kids playing out in the garden because there’s a seagull taken to nesting next door and it actually divebombs the kids heads if they go out there during that time. But they still don’t moan about it like the person you’re talking about!

Tell him they’re penguins

Darn it Link didn’t post

Oh ffs now it’s there twice 🙄

This reminds me of a stand-off I had with a seagull over a sausage roll once 😂 In fact I’ve had a few stand offs with them.

We live fairly close to the sea, I remember once during covid going to a covid testing centre set up in one of the tourist car parks. I can’t remember what it was, I think half a bag of crisps or something, but I rolled back the roof of the car so the glass roof was exposed and said watch this to my DCs. I drove to the middle of this giant empty car park and emptied the contents of the crisps outside and quickly shut the door. I’m not exaggerating when I say dozens of seagulls swooped down on us fighting for the crisps. They’d obviously been starved due to the lack of tourism during lockdown. I wish I’d had the for-sight to record it.

Oh dear, the poor fool has become fixated. I live near the sea and yes, they can be loud and bothersome. I have definitely sworn under my breath at the young ones calling incessantly for their parents from neighbouring roofs. But the coast is their home and I moved here, so....

You need to say something pragmatic to him to try and deflect his obsession. Even if it doesn't achieve the aim of shutting him up it might help you feel better to get it off your chest.

Even if you don't live by the sea, you can't escape them. I'm 20 miles inland and we've got loads of the buggers here.

There are ( safe, legal) things that can be done to discourage the seagulls if they’re actually on his roof/nesting or in his gardens etc.
This time of year they’re starting to nest and have babies so can be very noisy and territorial! We have a nesting pair on our roof every year - prob the same ones coming back- and the babies are hilarious. They’re really curious and will tap the velux windows for attention, run around the roof, drop pebbles etc. bit annoying when it’s 4.30am but they’re very fluffy and cute…

I love them apart from the fact they use my car as target practice (never dh’s)