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

It’s not fun to think about, but sometimes dust isn’t the only thing that is in your duct system. You may hear animal noises coming from air ducts and fear you have unwanted visitors. You can attempt to lure the little guys out but they may be nesting and refuse to leave their babies. Call Levy & Son Service Experts for a thorough duct cleaning and we will ensure your duct system is clear of all these nasty house guests, for instance:

Bugs and Insects

There are few things worse than aiming to kill a spider and seeing it escape into an air vent. It’s out of reach now and all you can do is lie in bed and imagine the spider laying all those baby spiders. You may even think you hear a couple racing around your duct system. Fear not. Levy & Son Service Experts will come out and give you a full duct cleaning and ensure that spider and any of her yucky friends are out of there. The offspring, too.

Rodents

When rats, squirrels, and other wildlife make a home in 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 tear up anything they encounter, including Christmas decorations or old baby clothes you’re keeping in your attic. Second, those little guys tend to chew, which can cause exposed wiring. That combined with the dried grass and leaves they’re likely taking in to manufacture a nest, and now you have quite the fire danger in your attic, behind your walls, and in your duct system. A full duct cleaning can eliminate rodent droppings or nests, but you could also need to call an expert wildlife removal company to remove the rodents and maybe an electrician if there was any wire damage.

Birds

Birds usually look for safe and warm places to nest, like your air vents. Nests mean babies, which means they are bringing food to babies, and that means BUGS. If you discover birds in your vents, you’ll presumably end up with bugs in your home. But that’s not the end of it. Birds assemble nests in your vents, and given the great amount of stuff they use to construct said nest, it can result in completely clogging a vent, stopping any airflow. As with our furry friends, a completely duct cleaning from Levy & Son Service Experts can get rid of any droppings, feathers, or other potential illness-carrying leave-behinds. You might also need animal control to actually remove the birds from air vents or attics.

Mice in Air Ducts

If you’ve got mice in your home’s ductwork, you should take steps to remove them. Mice chew through wiring and leave refuse like all rodents, but they also grow their population quickly. And when they run around in the ducts, treating it like the road system of your home, they may die in the ducts. This creates unhealthy living conditions, and you may notice unpleasant scents.

You probably suspect mice because of the sounds you hear – lots of scratching and scrabbling inside sheet metal. Or you could actually notice one making an escape into the air vents in your walls. You could even confirm their passage by inspecting the ducts for mice droppings. Either way, if you you’re worried you have mice you have two options. You could trap them yourself, by setting traps inside each duct and checking them in the morning. Or you might decide to pay for a specialist.

Once you have verified that the mice are removed, you should have your air ducts expertly cleaned by an HVAC company. If mice have been living in the walls, they will have left mice refuse in your ducts. Mice feces are toxic, and if you leave them in your ducts they can make your household sick. Levy & Son Service Experts offers duct cleaning services that will remove most debris from your home’s ventilation system.

Call Levy & Son Service Experts soon for a full duct cleaning to help assure the air you are breathing is healthy and pest-free.