How to Clean Attic After Rats Infestation

It is common for rat or rodents and other pests to invade an area of your home especially if you do not regularly maintain its cleanliness. Any kind of rodent infestation can easily turn to a situation where you might need to pay for expensive expert services. Rat infestation is normal yet irritating. Good news, we will provide you ways on how to clean attic after rats infestation.

It crucial to thoroughly clean up the areas in your house that were infested by rats so as to avoid the expensive ordeal. Moreover, if not taken properly, it may put your family at risk.

In this article, we are going to lay down the reasons why you have rats at home. In addition to that, we will also give you some of the effective ways on how to clean attic after rats infestation. This is because attics is normally the area of a house that is not always full of people. Also, it is often left untidy.

How to Clean Attic After Rats Infestation: Reasons Why You Have Rats at Home

Before we move on to list of remedies on how to clean attic after rats infestation here are some reasons why you have rats at home.

*Poor Sanitation

One possible reason why you have rats at home is that your place is not tidy. Rats love luring into places that are untidy and smelly. This is why you often see rats near garbage cans aside from the fact that they love all types of food.

Poor sanitation may not only attract rats but also poses health risks. Moreover, if you have poor sanitation at home you are like giving easy access to rats and other pests. You are allowing them to create a nest at your house.

Aside from that, rats and mice are always associate with dirty things and places. If you have or had rats in your attic, it is probably because there is garbage in it. Another reason is that you are not allowing some time in cleaning your attic. Rodents or rats are great hunters and will invade any place once they see an opportunity.

While rats can stay outside your house for several days, there will come a time when they will run out of food. Hence, they will most likely enter your house especially if it is unclean. They will see it as a perfect place to look for food and even raise their young. If you do not want to do any of these tips on how to clean attic after rats infestation, make sure that your attic is properly sanitized.

*Looking for shelter within your home

Aside from poor sanitation, it is every rat’s instinct to look for a place to stay within your home. You might be wondering why if they can just look for a place outside. The possible reason for this is that if they are able to find a place that is more secured and has foods, they will choose it. Also, they need a secure place to build a nest for their young.

The places that are categorized within your home are garage, garden, leaf piles, and any type of piles where it is feasible to build a nest. Once they find the perfect place, they will chew until they make a hole to enter your house.

When you are looking for some rat hole, you should consider looking for small holes. This is because rats can make their way even if it is inside the smallest holes. You will not easily find every hole, but if you carefully look you will see that the holes are really small. In addition to that, also check for holes in gas lines, windows, ceilings, and plumbing lines, to name a few. Gas lines, sewer line, and plumbing are surfaces that are most vulnerable to a rat infestation. Once they pass that, it would be easy for them to make their way to your attic.

*Variety of factors

Aside from the above-mentioned reason why your attic have rats, there are other various factors that attract rats inside your house. Usually, these factors are hard to control, but it is important to address as they can damage several households.

A lot of people do not know this, but even a sound coming from the construction site is attractive for rats. They deem this as a safe place to build a nest for their young. Aside from noise. temperature also plays a crucial role in rat infestation. As the temperature decreases, rodents become more and more popular. The rats will look for someplace to keep them warm since they cannot stand the cold for hours.

Aside from that, hunger will also force the rat to look for something to eat inside your house. They do not always find food outside the house, so to keep surviving they will break in to your house, have some food and look for a place to stay. These instances are hard to control even if you follow precautionary measures. This is why it is also advisable to hire a professional to solve the problem if necessary.

How to Clean Attic After Rats Infestation: Urine and Droppings

Now that you know some of the reasons why there are rats in your attic, let us move on to the ways on how to clean attic after rats infestation.

*Clean up the urine and droppings

Once you got rid of the rats in your attic, the next step is very crucial. Cleaning the attic to make sure that there are no urine or other droppings. If you fail to properly clean the attic, it may pose as a risk to you and your family’s general health.

The first thing to do when cleaning your attic is to make sure not to stir up the dust with sweeping the urine or droppings.

• When cleaning urine and droppings, choose to wear gloves made of latex or rubber.
• Spray some bleach or disinfectant on the surface where there is a rat urine. Let is stay for several minutes then wipe it. We advise that the concentration of the solution would be 1 part bleach and 10 parts of water. If you will use a commercial product, this recommended concentration is not necessarily applicable. For commercial products, it would be best to follow the instructions indicated in the packaging or the manual.
• When picking the droppings and urine, make use of a paper towel. Do not ever use a cloth that you are using when cleaning in the kitchen and re-use the cloth. If you are to use a cloth, you must properly dispose of in the garbage can.
• Once you remove the urine and droppings, thoroughly disinfect your belonging and other items that you think may have been contaminated by the urine and droppings.

*Disinfect the whole attic

Next step on how to clean attic after rats’ infestation is disinfecting the whole area. It is not enough to only disinfect the furniture and other items, you must also disinfect the whole area. To disinfect the whole place, do the following:

• Use a mixture of bleach and water in mopping the floors and wiping the walls. Make sure that you mop event the smallest area.
• If the furniture such as cabinets and the carpet is infested with rat, steam clean them.
• On the off chance you have a bed with matters in the attic, wash them with laundry detergent in warm or hot water. For those sheets with visible urine or droppings, you use hot water to totally get rid of the urine.

Lastly, remove your gloves and use soap to clean your hands. If you have an alcohol-based hand rub, use it instead of washing your hands with soap.

How to Clean Attic After Rats Infestation: Dead Rats and their Nest

While cleaning the attic, you will most likely find dead rats and several nets. Similar to cleaning the urine and droppings, make sure to wear latex or rubber gloves.

• Using the mixture of bleach and water that you use in cleaning up the urine, spray some of it on the dead rodents or their nest. Allow it to stay for a couple of minutes. Also, make sure that you also spray the surrounding areas of the dead rodent and nest.
• After spraying the mixture of bleach and water, soak them on the solution for several minutes before wiping with a paper towel.
• After wiping the dead rodent and their nest, put them in a sealed plastic bag. Place it on another paper bag.
• Once you sealed the rat and nest dispose them on a fully covered trash bin.
• Get rid of any cardboard boxes that have been exposed to urine or droppings. Plastic, glass, or metal storage can be cleaned by cleaning with the bleach and water solution or disinfectant. After that, using a rag or paper towel, clean up the urine or droppings, and dispose of the waste.

Get rid of your gloves and thoroughly wash your hands with warm water and soap. Decontaminate your gloves with the use of bleach and water solution.

Final Words

While these methods are effective in cleaning the attic that has been infested by a rat, you should seek for professional advice or service especially if the rats have access to your ventilation system. It would be dangerous for any person because of the risks associated with it. Also, it would still be best to prevent infestation by regularly cleaning your attic as well as the cabinet and other furniture. Otherwise, it might be too late for you.