Animal Droppings: Cleaning Your Attic

Animal Droppings: Cleaning Your Attic

Droppings are gross. No one wants to discover these in their attic. It signals you have a pest problem – one that must be cleaned and rectified immediately to prevent re-occurrence. Cleaning up the droppings and calling an exterminator sends a clear message to the critters that they’re not welcome in your home.

There are many reasons why you need to clean it all up, not the least of which is to keep the offensive odor from getting worse. In addition, this is also good for preventing the spread of bacteria and disease. Food bits, urine, body hairs, droppings, nesting materials, and even body-clinging parasites such as mites and fleas can be found in the attic. They all have to go.

Not only can these elements carry disease and illness, they can also cause your insulation to not work as efficiently. Thus, you start to lose precious energy out of your attic. The odor of the droppings, perhaps most disturbing of all, can attract other pests. This is because the scent they emit encourages other pests to follow them in their search for shelter and food.

You’ll probably notice the droppings with your nose before you see them. Once you’ve followed your nose to the source, it’s time to get cleaning.

Tips for Cleaning

Check out these tips to handling the clean-up:

• Wear a full-body haz-mat suit or other type of protective covering, as well as a face mask and latex gloves.
• Use a vacuum to gather small droppings, such as those from a rat or squirrel. Throw away the bag afterwards and insert a new one.
• Hand pick larger droppings, such as those from a raccoon or opossum, and place in a bag. Tie it tightly and discard.
• Get all pieces of nesting material and food debris.
• Take out old insulation that the critters have made their homes in and replace with new insulation.
• Once clean-up is finished, fog and sanitize the attic with an antimicrobial spray to kill any fungi or bacteria that linger.
• Deodorize the attic to prevent odors form wafting into the rest of the home.
• If cleaning up droppings is the last thing you want to be doing, call in the professionals at Cavanaugh’s. We’ll bring all the right equipment to get the job done quickly.

Once you have successfully removed the animal droppings, you’re not done. Now it’s time to call a pest control expert to locate the source and remove the pests. If you fail to do this, they’ll just keep coming back to make more droppings and wreak more havoc. End the cycle when you call Cavanaugh’s Professional Termite and Pest Services at one of our three locations. Or, complete our online form.