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When Animals Attack – Revenge of the Turkey Vultures

Posted: 2/18/2019

Opening scene:

Aerial of small town America. Orange County, Virginia, home of the Fighting Hornets.  Panning across the landscape, a city comes into view, the camera stops and begins to zoom in.  It’s the high school athletic fields.  There in the middle of the football field is the Fighting Hornet logo.  But wait, what are those two buildings, one on the North and one on the South?  They look similar but then again they don’t.  Both the exact same size, except one is a pristine white while the other is . . . well, not white and not pristine.  In fact, the roof looks as though it went through some sort of zombie apocalypse

This, my friends, is what happens when animals attack.  The membrane is white-on-black EPDM and it is a modular building used as restrooms.  This one was on the south side of the fields.  The culprit?  Turkey vultures.  Hundreds of them.

Here is the other building on the North side for reference.  Both buildings delivered and set at the same time, July 2018.  The photos were taken February 4, 2019.

Some questions:

    1. Why one and not the other?

    2. Was it the location, south versus north?

    3. What does white-on-black EPDM taste like?

    4. Why are there braille letters on a drive-up ATM?

The answers:

    1. I don’t know.

    2. I don’t know.

    3. I don’t know.

    4. There are?

Mule-Hide has received reports of animal damage caused by vultures, squirrels, raccoons, seagulls, pigeons, and HVAC contractors, just to mention a few.

What can we do as a manufacturers, contractors, consultants and building owners to prevent this from happening?  The hard truth is, nothing really.  At some point, while on vacation in Vegas, the animals get together after losing too much money playing slots and decide that they want to take it out on someone else.  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?  Well, not this time.  It doesn’t matter.  If you are the “lucky” one who gets picked, you end up with a hefty insurance claim.

We can’t really determine why the south building was destroyed and the north building went untouched.  However, investigating the situation revealed what appeared to be a missing vent stack on the south building:

Could the missing vent allow whatever was supposed to be vented outside to collect within the space below the roof deck?  Did the vultures simply want to get to the really good buffet and didn’t want to use the front door?

We don’t know and we probably never will.

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