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

It’s not fun to think about, but often times dust isn’t all that is in your duct system. You may hear animal noises coming from air ducts and fear you have unwelcome tenants. You can pull out all the stops to lure the critters out but they may be nesting and refuse to leave their babies. Call Coastal Service Experts for a complete duct cleaning and we will confirm your duct system is free of all these uninvited house guests, including:

Bugs and Insects

Nothing is worse than working to kill a spider and seeing it run into the air vent. It’s out of reach now and all you can do is lay in your room and imagine the thing laying all those spider eggs. You may even think you hear some racing around your duct system. Fear not. Coastal Service Experts will come see you and give you a full duct cleaning and ensure that spider and any of her bug friends are good and gone. Eggs, too.

Rodents

When raccoons, mice, and other furry visitors find themselves in your duct system, usually through gaps in the duct work and breaks in the foundation or home exterior, it causes many issues. First, rodents can leave droppings behind and can tear up anything they get into, including Christmas decorations or baby toys you’re storing in your attic. Second, rodents tend to chew, which can cause exposed wiring. That mixed with the dried grass and leaves they’re likely bringing in to create a nest, and now there’s quite the fire risk in your attic, duct system, and behind your walls. A complete duct cleaning can remove rodent droppings or nests, but you might also need to call animal control to remove the mice, squirrels, or other wildlife and maybe an electrician if there has been any damage to wiring.

Birds

Birds typically look for safe and sheltered places to nestand your air vents are perfect. Nests mean eggs, which means they are feeding babies, and that means BUGS. If you discover birds in your vents, you’ll presumably end up with six-legged and eight-legged critters in your home. But that’s not the worst part. Birds assemble nests in your vents, and given the vast amount of stuff they use to create said nest, it can result in completely clogging a vent, obstructing any airflow. As with mice, squirrels, etc., a thorough duct cleaning from Coastal Service Experts can remove any droppings, feathers, or other potential illness-carrying leave-behinds. You could also need an expert animal removal company to actually remove the birds from air vents or attics.

Mice in Air Ducts

If you have mice in your home’s ductwork, you should take steps quickly to remove them. Mice nibble on electrical wires and leave feces like all rodents, but they also grow their population quickly. And when they run around in the ducts, treating it like the beltway of your residence, they eventually die in the ducts. This creates unhealthy living conditions, and you may notice unpleasant scents.

You might guess mice from the noise you hear – lots of scratching and scrabbling inside ducts. Or you may actually notice one making an escape through the vents in your home. You may even confirm their status by inspecting the ducts for mice feces. If you suspect mice you have two options. You can trap them yourself, by placing traps just inside each duct and checking them in the morning. Or you might decide to pay for a pest control company.

Once you have determined that the mice are exterminated, you should have your ductwork professionally cleaned by an HVAC company. If mice have been present, they will have left mice refuse in your ducts. Mice droppings are toxic, and if you leave them in your ducts they can make your household sick. Coastal Service Experts offers duct cleaning services that will eliminate most debris from your home’s ventilation system.

Call Coastal Service Experts today for a complete duct cleaning to help assure the air your family is breathing is healthy and pest-free.