WAIKOLOA — The Waikoloa Village post office has received a steady stream of unwanted deliveries as of late.
WAIKOLOA — The Waikoloa Village post office has received a steady stream of unwanted deliveries as of late.
The problem doesn’t involve the everyday sort of packages employees at the Pua Melia Street location are used to seeing, however. Instead, the issue concerns unannounced droppings from above.
“Over last several months, bird excrement has been piling up in front of the entrances. It’s not really high off the ground because people walk on it and kind of grind it in and it’s disgusting to look at,” said Robert Harman, a resident of Waikoloa Village who has been actively pursuing a solution to the problem.
“It’s a health and safety issue,” he continued. “Somebody is going to slip on this one day when it’s wet and go flying.”
Postmaster Mike Slater, who covers both the Waimea and Waikoloa Village offices, said birds like to perch on two light fixtures hanging down from a vaulted rooftop covering the entrance to the building in Waikoloa Village.
Most of the time, Slater said, the intermittent rains in the area wash away the problem before it builds up. But he acknowledged when it stays dry for too long, the bird feces can accumulate and create an inconvenience.
He said in the seven months he’s served as postmaster, he’s fielded a few grievances surrounding the issue, but also assumes more nonchalant complaints may be passed to his employees from time to time.
Some customers when asked about this issue on Tuesday said they noticed it, but it didn’t really bother them that much.
Harman discovered through his efforts to have the problem addressed that there’s no one specifically assigned to manage the accumulation of bird excrement at the busy post office.
“Can you explain to me why somebody can’t take a hose, go out there with a nozzle, put it on high pressure and spray that off of there?” Harman asked.
Slater said cleaning up bird excrement isn’t listed in the job description when his employees apply, and at the moment he’s dealing with turnover with his cleaning crew. And so on Tuesday, Slater took matters into his own hands.
“I think the problem is mainly getting it addressed and fixed in one fell swoop,” Slater said. “I’m here to abate the problem today the best I can, and I am currently in the process of getting a more permanent solution.”
That solution will likely involve pest control, although Slater said he’d only utilize their services if they could find a humane way to keep the birds from resting above the post office entrance.
“I have confidence the pest control people will get it taken care of,” he said. “It will be taken care of.”
Until then, however, customers will have to keep a watchful eye out — both above and below.