What’s Crawling Around in Your Home’s Air Ducts?

It’s unpleasant to consider, but sometimes dust isn’t all that is in your duct system. You may hear animal noises coming from air ducts and notice you have unwanted visitors. You can try and lure the creatures out but if they’re nesting they may not leave their babies. Call Stevenson Service Experts for a complete duct cleaning and we will confirm your duct system is free of all these uninvited house guests, for instance: 

Bugs and Insects 

Nothing is worse than trying to kill a spider and watching it run into an air vent. It’s impossible to get it now and all you can do is lay in your room and imagine it laying all those spider babies. You may even think you hear a few racing around your duct system. Don’t worry. Stevenson Service Experts will come out and give you a full duct cleaning and make sure that spider and any of her bug friends are good and gone. Babies, too. 

Rodents 

When rats, squirrels, and other wildlife make their way into your duct system, usually through holes in the duct work and cracks in the foundation or home exterior, it causes multiple issues. First, squirrels, mice, or raccoons can leave droppings behind and can destroy anything they come across, including Christmas decorations or old baby clothes you’re storing in your attic. Second, rodents tend to chew, which can cause exposed wiring. That combined with the dried grass and leaves they’re likely carrying in to manufacture a nest, and now you have quite the fire hazard in your duct system, your attic, or behind your walls. A good duct cleaning can remove rodent droppings or nests, but you may also need to call animal control to remove the rodents and possibly an electrician if there has been any damage to wiring. 

Birds 

Birds usually find safe and sheltered places to nest, like your air vents. Nests mean babies, which means they are feeding babies, and that means BUGS. If you discover birds in your vents, you’ll likely end up with bugs in your home. But that’s not the worst part. Birds construct nests in your vents, and given the large amount of leaves and grass they use to construct said nest, it can end up completely clogging a vent, preventing any airflow. As with rodents, a full duct cleaning from Stevenson Service Experts can remove any droppings, feathers, or other potential illness-carrying leave-behinds. You might also need animal control to actually remove the birds from your vents or attics. 

Mice in Air Ducts 

If there are mice in your ducts, you should take steps quickly to remove them. Mice chew through electrical wires and leave feces like most rodents, but they also multiply quickly. And when they run around in the ducts, treating it like the highway of your home, they usually die in there. This creates a health hazard, and you may notice it due to the smell. 
 
You probably think of mice from the noises you hear – some scratching and scrabbling inside metal. Or you might actually see one making an escape through the vents in your home. You might even confirm their presence by inspecting the ducts for mice droppings. Either way, if you think there’s mice you have some options. You could trap them yourself, by placing traps just inside each duct and checking them each morning. Or you could pay for a pest control company. 
 
Once you’ve determined that the mice are exterminated, you will need to have your air ducts professionally cleaned by an HVAC company. If mice have been living in the walls, they will have left droppings in your ducts. Mice droppings are toxic, and if you leave them in your ducts they can make you and your family sick. Stevenson Service Experts offers duct cleaning services that will remove most debris from your home’s airways. 

Call Stevenson Service Experts today or schedule online for a full duct cleaning to help make sure the air you are breathing is healthy and pest-free.