Forget rats, PIGEONS are getting into our Portswood homes

Three students on Shakespeare Avenue discovered a pigeon had been living in their house rent-free this morning.

A few nights previous, Xenia, Rachael and Carmen were disturbed to hear squeaking noises coming from the ceiling, which they mistook to be a rat.

Things escalated when a loud thud sounded this morning. Something had fallen into the covered fireplace in Rachael's room.

Xenia said: "We were trying to reach our landlord so we could call pest control.

"Our landlord didn't respond, so we took matters into our own hands."

After hearing the thud the girls investigated further.

They slowly removed the fireplace cover to reveal… a pigeon.

"I'm just happy it wasn't a rat," Xenia said.

Instead of panicking, the housemates put the "confused" pigeon in a cardboard box and carefully moved it out of the front door, to set it free.

It seemed the pigeon took a liking to his saviours as it refused to fly off at first.

Hey hun

Finally it flew off, and the girls "felt like proud mums letting their child out into the world".

In the brief time they shared with the pigeon they named him Jeremy, but Xenia said personally she thought it was a girl pigeon.

To their delight, Jeremy quickly found his "lover" on the neighbour's roof.

Awww

Xenia and Carmen are Civil Engineering students and Rachael studies Geology.

Watch the full video on The Soton Tab's Instagram.