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

You don’t want to think about it, but sometimes dust isn’t exclusively what 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 Matz-Rightway for a thorough duct cleaning and we will confirm your duct system is free of all these uninvited house guests, including: 

Insects and Bugs 

Nothing is worse than trying to kill a spider and watching it run into the air vent. It’s impossible to get 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 scampering around your duct system. Don’t worry. Matz-Rightway will come out and give you a complete duct cleaning and make sure that spider and any of her bug friends are good and gone. Babies, too. 

Rodents 

When rodents 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 baby toys 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 bringing in to create a nest, and now you have quite the fire danger 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 normally get into 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 totally clogging a vent, preventing any airflow. As with rodents, a full duct cleaning from Matz-Rightway 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 air ducts, you should take steps quickly to remove them. Mice chew through wiring and leave droppings 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 eventually die in there. This creates a health hazard, and you may notice it due to the smell. 
 
You might suspect mice because of 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 leavings. Either way, if you think there’s mice you have two options. You can trap them yourself, by placing traps on the interior of each duct and checking them in the morning. Or you could hire a professional exterminator. 
 
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 leavings are toxic, and if you leave them in your ducts they can make your household sick. Matz-Rightway offers duct cleaning services that will clean out most debris from your home’s airways. 

Call Matz-Rightway today or schedule online for a complete duct cleaning to help make sure the air your family is breathing is healthy and pest-free.