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

You don’t want to think about it, but occasionally dust isn’t all that is in your duct system. You might have heard animal noises coming from air ducts and realize you have unwelcome tenants. You can try and lure the critters out but they may not leave their babies if they are nesting. Call Strand Brothers Service Experts for a thorough duct cleaning and we will make sure your duct system is clear of all these uninvited house guests, including:

Bugs and Insects

Not much is worse than trying to kill a spider and seeing it escape into an air vent. You can’t get to it now and all you can do is lie in bed and imagine the thing laying all those spider babies. You may even think you hear a few scampering around your duct system. Never fear. Strand Brothers Service Experts will come to your home and give you a complete duct cleaning and make sure that spider and any of her bug friends are out of there. The offspring, too.

Rodents

When rodents make their way into your duct system, generally through gaps in the duct work and breaks in the foundation or home exterior, it causes many issues. First, squirrels, mice, or raccoons can leave droppings behind and can tear up anything they get into, including holiday decorations or old toys you’re saving in your attic. Second, rodents tend to chew, which can leave you with exposed wiring. That combined with the dried leaves and twigs they’re likely taking in to manufacture a nest, and that creates quite the fire hazard in your duct system, your attic, or behind your walls. A complete duct cleaning can get rid of rodent droppings or nests, but you could 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 dry places to nest, like your air vents. Nests mean eggs, which means they are finding food for babies, and that means BUGS. If you have birds in your vents, you’ll probably end up with creepy-crawlies in your home. But that’s not the worst part. Birds construct nests in your vents, and given the vast amount of stuff they use to build said nest, it can wind up completely clogging a vent, obstructing any airflow. As with rodents, a thorough duct cleaning from Strand Brothers Service Experts can get rid of any droppings, feathers, or other potential illness-carrying leave-behinds. You may also need an expert animal removal company to actually remove the birds from your vents or attics.

Mice in Air Ducts

If you’ve got mice in your home’s air ducts, you should take steps quickly to remove them. Mice nibble on wires and leave feces like all rodents, but they also add to their population quickly. And when they run around in the ducts, treating it like the road system of your home, they eventually die in there. This creates an unsanitary situation, and you may notice an unsavory odor.

You probably guess mice because of the sounds you hear – lots of scratching and scrabbling along walls. Or you could actually spot one making an escape into the vents in your walls. You may even confirm their presence by inspecting the ducts for mice feces. If you you’re worried you have mice you have a couple options. You can trap them yourself, by placing traps on the interior of each duct and checking them each morning. Or you could contract a professional exterminator.

After you have verified that the mice are exterminated, you will need to have your ductwork thoroughly cleaned by an HVAC company. If mice have been present, they will have left feces in your ducts. Mice leavings are toxic, and if you ignore them in your ducts they can make your household sick. Strand Brothers Service Experts offers duct cleaning services that will remove most debris from your home’s air ducts.

Call Strand Brothers Service Experts now for a complete duct cleaning to help assure the air you are breathing is healthy and pest-free.