Anti-Rodent Storage Tips for Clothes, Campers, Boats, and More

When you have rodents in your attic, you cannot expect them to leave everything as-it-is and disappear. Rats and mice don’t just run around and make scratching sounds at night. They mess up the whole place.

Rats or mice can, for example, chew on anything they land their incisor teeth on. It can be an electric cable, furniture, pipe, wall, or fabric. Plus, they leave potentially infectious material including dead rodents or rodent droppings, urine, and saliva all around the attic.

Put simply, rats and mice in the attic are a threat to both the house and the people living in it. Rodents such as rats and mice alone can spread up to 35 diseases.

It is possible that a dead rat or its droppings, urine, or saliva carry disease-causing viruses or bacteria.

So, cleaning up after rodents run havoc in your attic, isn’t as simple as using a mop and broom.  

You need to follow steps that typically technicians specializing in post-rodent attic cleaning would follow.

Here in this post, we will discuss top tips on how to clean up once you get rid of rodents in your attic.

Are you sure rodents won’t come around again? Is your attic rodent-proof now?

If it isn’t, consider calling in professionals who will safely and effectively rodent-proof your attic and advise you on ways to keep rodents out of your attic.

You don’t want to be cleaning up every other week.

So you have to be 100% sure that rodents will not find a way in, again.

The CDC recommends that you wait at least five days before you start cleaning up a rodent-infested attic, basement, or crawlspace. When there is no sign of an ongoing rodent infestation in the attic, follow the steps below to clean it up:  

Step 1: Open all doors and windows for at least half an hour. Avoid visiting the attic during this time. Let fresh air come in and remove potentially contaminated air inside the attic. Try cross ventilation for maximum air circulation.

Step 2: Put on a dust mask and wear rubber, vinyl, or latex gloves when you clean up rodent droppings, urine, saliva, footprints, and nesting materials. Dust masks don’t guarantee 100% protection but they are helpful in avoiding accidental ingestion or inhalation of contaminated dust, debris, etc.

Step 3: You need a cleaning solution. You can use a household disinfectant; follow instructions on the label. Alternatively, you can mix bleach with water in a 1:9 ratio.

Step 4: Thoroughly spray the cleaning solution on droppings, urine, and nesting material to inactivate disease-causing bacteria and viruses.

Step 4: Next, use paper towels to pick up all potentially infectious materials and gather them in a bag. Seal the bag tight to safely dispose of it.  

Step 5: Spray the solution on your attic floor and mop it up.

Step 6: Do you have storage containers and furniture items in your attic? Place them in a ventilated area.

Step 7:  Disinfect exteriors of storage containers made from metal, wood, glass, or thick plastic with bleach or household disinfectant. Cardboard boxes contaminated with rodent droppings or urine should be discarded.

Step 8: Wipe drawers, cabinets, and countertops clean with disinfectant or bleach.

Step 9: If there are any rugs or upholstered furniture items in the attic, you can shampoo them with a disinfectant or use a professional-grade steam cleaner.

Step 10: What if you have papers, file folders, books, magazines, and other items that cannot be washed? Well, you can keep them in a sunlit area for a day or store them in a secure place for one week.

Step 12: Wash bedding, clothing, stuffed toys, etc. in hot water and detergent. Keep wearing the gloves and mask. You can machine-dry the laundry (at a high setting). Alternatively, you can hang it to air-dry in sun (in your yard).

Step 11:  Decontaminate gloves with the cleaning solution. Wash your hands with soap and water.

When there is evidence that rats or mice have been crawling inside air ducts (heating and cooling ventilation systems), it’s best to call in professional rodent exterminators for safe and effective rodent control and clean-up.

Rodent control experts know how to deal with a rodent infestation in ventilation systems or how to clean ducts after a rodent infestation.

If you are not confident that you can clean up your attic safely and effectively on your own, don’t hesitate to ask for help.

While safe removal/disposal of infectious material is important, the residual smell of urine or droppings can also attract more rodents to invade your attic.

Therefore, it is important that attic cleaning and sanitation are done properly.

Call Rodents Stop at (818) 583-7287 and speak with a rodent control technician specializing in attic cleaning today.