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 critters out but if they’re nesting they may not leave their babies. Call McElroy Service Experts for a thorough duct cleaning and we will confirm your duct system is free of all these uninvited house guests, such as: 

Bugs and Insects 

Nothing is worse than trying to kill a spider and watching it run into your air vent. You can’t get to it now and all you can do is lie in bed and imagine it laying all those spider babies. You may even think you hear a couple scurrying around your duct system. Don’t worry. McElroy 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 raccoons, mice, and other furry visitors make their way into your duct system, usually through holes in the duct work and fractures in the foundation or home exterior, it causes many issues. First, squirrels, mice, or raccoons can leave droppings behind and can destroy anything they come across, including Christmas decorations or baby toys you’re saving in your attic. Second, animals tend to chew, which can cause exposed wiring. That combined with the dried grass and leaves they’re likely bringing in to build a nest, and now you have quite the fire hazard in your duct system, your attic, or behind your walls. A full 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 typically get into safe and dry places to nest, like your air vents. Nests mean babies, which means they are feeding babies, and that means BUGS. If you find birds in your vents, you’ll probably end up with bugs in your home. But that’s not the worst part. Birds construct nests in your vents, and given the great amount of materials they use to construct said nest, it can end up totally clogging a vent, preventing any airflow. As with rodents, a full duct cleaning from McElroy Service Experts can remove any droppings, feathers, or other potential illness-carrying leave-behinds. You may 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 may die in there. This creates a health hazard, and you may notice it due to the smell. 
 
You may suspect mice because of the noise you hear – some scratching and scrabbling along ductwork. Or you may actually spot one making an escape through the vents in your home. You may even confirm their presence by inspecting the ducts for mice feces. Either way, if you suspect mice you have a couple options. You can trap them yourself, by placing traps just inside each duct and checking them each morning. Or you could pay for a specialist. 
 
Once you’ve determined that the mice are exterminated, you will need to have your ducts professionally cleaned by an HVAC company. If mice have been present, they will have left droppings in your ducts. Mice feces are toxic, and if you don’t remove them from your ducts they can make you and your family sick. McElroy Service Experts offers duct cleaning services that will remove most debris from your home’s airways. 

Call McElroy 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.