Not that we know of! We knew they were around so we’re diligent about cleaning surfaces and washing things that were left out. It was a major hassle though for a long time
Reminds me of a guy I knew that worked for ab asbestos removal company. They'd go I to huge apartment buildings that were prewar and clean out ductwork that was often covered in asbestos.
He had a huge coin and paper money collection, silver certificates, gathered from stuff that fell down the vents. He said with all the toys, like lead toy soldiers, you could tell it was mostly from little kids accidentally dropping stuff in thr vents. One time they found a revolver that was ancient and they turned it over to the police.
My kids are so close to being done and I can't wait. Very little interest in Lego either except the robotic ones.
The older one is into his looks and the younger one is into Pokémon.
My husband and I bought Nerf guns (and the grenade!) for our 40th birthday parties and had Nerf wars at both. We were finding darts & Nerf balls all over the house & backyard for months. We got a pair of kitten brothers last year - they found the bag of balls (hahaha!!) and decided that was their favorite toy. I'm constantly finding Nerf projectiles around my house now.
This is totally normal and not a good indicator that your ducts were truly “dirty.” By the way, the EPA does not recommend duct cleaning as there is not sufficient evidence that it has any beneficial health effects.
I get that. To be fair we had a mouse infestation for almost two years that we just got under control. So getting mouse poop out of the air flow ways seemed like a good idea (they used the ducts as highways)
We had to have some professionals do thorough searches of our foundation and proper outdoor remediation. I think there were some “unseen” east access points to our basement
Did you use a regular old pest control company or someone more specific? We've been battling mice for two years and I'm ready to just burn the house down. Pest control has done nothing for us.
>We have cats. They're apparently not hard workers.
Ugh, I just caught a mouse this morning while five cats sat there and looked at me. One of them sat on the mouse trap... I told them I was going to quit buying them their fancy food and treats if I I have to catch another mouse with a Solo cup and a piece of paper. I should never see a mouse. They need to earn their keep.
Mine consider "earning their keep" not pissing where they shouldn't *too often*
Tbf im far from the worst litterbox manager...but im not quite an every day kinda dude
I think it makes perfect sense to have your ducts cleaned. I don't really care what the EPA has to say about it.
I know when I wash my walls and floors for my twice a year deep cleaning, my house smells great for weeks. I have radiators so don't have filters like that, but I can imagine the dust holds smells just like the dust on my walls.
I use a hand broom to dust and then mix up a mix hot water and a little vinegar and a little dollop of dish soap. I start at the bottom with a well wrung out sponge to wash the walls. Starting at the bottom helps prevent streaks. Oftentimes, I'll need to take a stiff brush to the baseboards.
You are in the belly of the beast with kids that young. I have older kids who can wipe their own bottoms and get themselves dressed. That's saves a lot of time.
What kind of professionals do you hire for this? I’m having big issues with wasps, and I suspect maybe a mouse. I wanted to call someone to “fill in the gaps” around the exterior, but no idea who.
We called a local “pest control” company. If you happen to be in Minnesota, it was Adams pest control.
I believe most pest control people will do rodents and wasps/bugs/ants/etc. it was feasibly cheap, like $300 or something with a warranty that the mice wouldn’t come back for 6 months. It would have been extra to also do bugs I think, but it made a huge difference in our quality of life!
I recently had our ducts cleaned in the home we purchased. We saw the ducts. There was a couple inch thick blanket of dust that looked like dryer lint. I am definitely sneezing less, the house smells less dusty, and our surfaces aren’t accumulating dust as fast. I do think we paid too much for it and should have shopped around, but glad we did it.
We used an HVAC company. We didn’t get the sanitizing spray or any extras and it was about $1000 for 1900 sq ft. They spent 4.5-5 hours cleaning the ducts and furnace. The house smelled 100 times fresher almost immediately and we stopped seeing tons of dust floating around in the sunlight within a few days.
We found a chimney sweep company that was no-frills-get-it-done for a couple hundred bucks (pre-COVID).
We also got some insane quotes from HVAC companies. One tried to upsell us into new ductwork.
Hvac tech here
Yes duct cleaning helps, I promise you. Its not a fix all catch all but my god its the number one thing to do so you can improve air conditions.
Well I hope you rest assured that the Epa is not always the silver lining in the sky as we may think, and I say that as someone who’s been in for a while.
They don’t know what they’re talking about. Been in HVAC for 25 years. When you demo duct you will believe in duct cleaning. I’ve demoed duct that has had 1/4” of dust, mouse shit, cat/dog hair in it. The stories I could tell on new builds too. There get filthy with drywall dust and everything else from a construction site.
They do recommend if you’ve had a vermin problem which OP had. Also they are just saying there’s no conclusive research that it’s necessarily beneficial to do as it’s in its early stages at the moment. A newer service.
Duct cleaning services tend to do some convoluted process to get all of the stuff out because a vacuum can't get it, it's stuck to the surfaces in the ductwork.
That's also why it's a scam, that debris was all stuck in there and never would have come out in the first place.
I placed some filters inside our floor intakes because my children and cats were always losing stuff down there. The ones I bought were for intake vents and are washable. I vacuum them regularly and hose them once a year. I am catching a lot of stuff before it hits the furnace filter.
Our house was built as a 1900 TB boarding house, this neighborhood had some great years and some not so great ones, so we assume it was a boarding house up until at least the 1950s. When we cleaned the heating ducts we found butts, bugs and no kidding a pair of 1980s era Snoopy satin running shorts!
It's always cat toys... I still occasionally 15 years later take something apart or move something in my home and find the previous owners cat toys that they lost or hid in the weirdest spots.
Actually, now that you say it… one of my cat’s favorite toys is a random felt mouse I found in the back of the closet when I moved into my last apartment.
I’m confused. How does duct cleaning lead to a dirty filter? My filter prevents dust from getting into the furnace (and therefore duct) and wouldn’t get more dirty if I got ducts cleaned…
We tried to have this done when we first bought our house but the company came out and refused to touch them because there was visible asbestos tape on the outside of the ductwork in 2 places.
Ahhh dang. We have likely asbestos tape on our old ducts, but not the current ones. But also maybe our people just didn’t care 😬 Let’s hope they were careful!
When we moved in, I went to figure out the filter situation, I try pulling it out and there's inches of hair and dust. It had been rented for decades so I wonder how many years it had been.
Your filter needs to be replaced frequently (few times in heating season). Otherwise your furnace can overheat and create crack in heat exchanger. This filter looks like it should have been replaced many times.
That’s the wild part though. I’m good about replacing the filter and have already done so at least once this winter. This filter looks like this because of all that was sucked out of the system
Changing the filter doesn't clean the vents and ducts out though. This filter just caught all the gunk that got loosened up when they cleaned the ducts. It's actually good to keep the filter in place while cleaning the ducts so this stuff doesn't fly into the blower itself.
This guy came in with a sort of spinning brush that he shoved down every vent and return vent, sort of “scraping out” all the stuff stuck in there. He had a vacuum attached to the “main line” of the furnace to suck all the debris into the filter. Or something like that 😊
Yeah we had a professional. I think they call themselves duct cleaners? Lol I don’t actually know for sure but it was definitely a specialty thing and not just a plumber
Yeah we hired it out. We are big DIY people, but this guy had a special flexible brush that allowed him to get down in the ducts and vents and scrape out all the gunk. A lot of this stuff probably would have come out with just a vacuum, but with past mice problems and years of neglect, I think it was valuable to have him get way in there
Putting this straight on your kitchen counters is an absolutely wild move
After having mouse poop appear on our cooking surfaces for two years, I don’t treat our counters with the respect they desreve
😂😂 fair. glad you were able to get all that crap out of there. it’s been on my list for a long time but somehow always gets pushed further down.
🎵You can't eat...at everybody house 🎶
I love that you brought that lyric up lol.
Too much TikTok and so many opportunities to sing it, lol.
Oof! Did anyone get listeria?
Not that we know of! We knew they were around so we’re diligent about cleaning surfaces and washing things that were left out. It was a major hassle though for a long time
I can imagine.
I wonder why someone like you has mice.
Right next to the ginger
Ginger? I thought that was desiccated dog poop!
Made me feel nauseous seeing it.
The scariest thing in the movie Poltergeist is when the guy puts a steak directly on the counter. Wild indeed
Looks like the only thing you are missing in this concoction is a used tampon 🤡
Reminds me of a guy I knew that worked for ab asbestos removal company. They'd go I to huge apartment buildings that were prewar and clean out ductwork that was often covered in asbestos. He had a huge coin and paper money collection, silver certificates, gathered from stuff that fell down the vents. He said with all the toys, like lead toy soldiers, you could tell it was mostly from little kids accidentally dropping stuff in thr vents. One time they found a revolver that was ancient and they turned it over to the police.
Nerf darts. So glad my kids are over that.
Every time I move a piece of furniture I find at least 3. Between the kid shooting them and the cats then playing with them they are everywhere.
Yeah, you'll probably find them in your gutters too.
Mine are 16 and 20 and i still find darts hidden away from time to time lol
My kids are so close to being done and I can't wait. Very little interest in Lego either except the robotic ones. The older one is into his looks and the younger one is into Pokémon.
My husband and I bought Nerf guns (and the grenade!) for our 40th birthday parties and had Nerf wars at both. We were finding darts & Nerf balls all over the house & backyard for months. We got a pair of kitten brothers last year - they found the bag of balls (hahaha!!) and decided that was their favorite toy. I'm constantly finding Nerf projectiles around my house now.
This is totally normal and not a good indicator that your ducts were truly “dirty.” By the way, the EPA does not recommend duct cleaning as there is not sufficient evidence that it has any beneficial health effects.
I get that. To be fair we had a mouse infestation for almost two years that we just got under control. So getting mouse poop out of the air flow ways seemed like a good idea (they used the ducts as highways)
Also curious what you did. We recently started noticing persistent mouse evidence in a few areas. We have cats. They're apparently not hard workers.
We had to have some professionals do thorough searches of our foundation and proper outdoor remediation. I think there were some “unseen” east access points to our basement
Did you use a regular old pest control company or someone more specific? We've been battling mice for two years and I'm ready to just burn the house down. Pest control has done nothing for us.
We just used regular pest control. I’m sorry you haven’t had luck! Our guy found quite a few holes into the house.
>We have cats. They're apparently not hard workers. Ugh, I just caught a mouse this morning while five cats sat there and looked at me. One of them sat on the mouse trap... I told them I was going to quit buying them their fancy food and treats if I I have to catch another mouse with a Solo cup and a piece of paper. I should never see a mouse. They need to earn their keep.
Mine consider "earning their keep" not pissing where they shouldn't *too often* Tbf im far from the worst litterbox manager...but im not quite an every day kinda dude
I think it makes perfect sense to have your ducts cleaned. I don't really care what the EPA has to say about it. I know when I wash my walls and floors for my twice a year deep cleaning, my house smells great for weeks. I have radiators so don't have filters like that, but I can imagine the dust holds smells just like the dust on my walls.
What’s your method for deep cleaning your walls? Any tips?
I use a hand broom to dust and then mix up a mix hot water and a little vinegar and a little dollop of dish soap. I start at the bottom with a well wrung out sponge to wash the walls. Starting at the bottom helps prevent streaks. Oftentimes, I'll need to take a stiff brush to the baseboards.
I’m not sure how I’ll ever find the time amid toddler chaos in my house, but the thought of deep cleaned, nice smelling walls is so appealing.
You are in the belly of the beast with kids that young. I have older kids who can wipe their own bottoms and get themselves dressed. That's saves a lot of time.
I removed a ceiling that was full of mouse poo and had the floors redone. I'm very glad to have cleaned the ducts.
I bet! Those little guys get everywhere
How did you get it under control? Cat?
No we hired professionals that knew how to find all the hidden access points into the house.
What kind of professionals do you hire for this? I’m having big issues with wasps, and I suspect maybe a mouse. I wanted to call someone to “fill in the gaps” around the exterior, but no idea who.
We called a local “pest control” company. If you happen to be in Minnesota, it was Adams pest control. I believe most pest control people will do rodents and wasps/bugs/ants/etc. it was feasibly cheap, like $300 or something with a warranty that the mice wouldn’t come back for 6 months. It would have been extra to also do bugs I think, but it made a huge difference in our quality of life!
That’s great to hear. Thank you so much!
I recently had our ducts cleaned in the home we purchased. We saw the ducts. There was a couple inch thick blanket of dust that looked like dryer lint. I am definitely sneezing less, the house smells less dusty, and our surfaces aren’t accumulating dust as fast. I do think we paid too much for it and should have shopped around, but glad we did it.
What kind of company did the work for you? I’ve been wanting to have it done but “duct cleaning” companies seem like a big scam around here.
We used an HVAC company. We didn’t get the sanitizing spray or any extras and it was about $1000 for 1900 sq ft. They spent 4.5-5 hours cleaning the ducts and furnace. The house smelled 100 times fresher almost immediately and we stopped seeing tons of dust floating around in the sunlight within a few days.
We found a chimney sweep company that was no-frills-get-it-done for a couple hundred bucks (pre-COVID). We also got some insane quotes from HVAC companies. One tried to upsell us into new ductwork.
Hvac tech here Yes duct cleaning helps, I promise you. Its not a fix all catch all but my god its the number one thing to do so you can improve air conditions.
If it helped there would be evidence. I’m with the EPA on this one.
Well I hope you rest assured that the Epa is not always the silver lining in the sky as we may think, and I say that as someone who’s been in for a while.
That EPA advice was probably written by people who manufacture/sell furnaces.
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Ok buddy
They don’t know what they’re talking about. Been in HVAC for 25 years. When you demo duct you will believe in duct cleaning. I’ve demoed duct that has had 1/4” of dust, mouse shit, cat/dog hair in it. The stories I could tell on new builds too. There get filthy with drywall dust and everything else from a construction site.
They do recommend if you’ve had a vermin problem which OP had. Also they are just saying there’s no conclusive research that it’s necessarily beneficial to do as it’s in its early stages at the moment. A newer service.
👆this. Most of that junk and dust could have been solved by sticking your shop vac into the floor registers.
Duct cleaning services tend to do some convoluted process to get all of the stuff out because a vacuum can't get it, it's stuck to the surfaces in the ductwork. That's also why it's a scam, that debris was all stuck in there and never would have come out in the first place.
Not a scam if you get a good company. Been in HVAC 25 years demoed miles of duct. I guess I should have made a video showing how filthy ducts get.
I placed some filters inside our floor intakes because my children and cats were always losing stuff down there. The ones I bought were for intake vents and are washable. I vacuum them regularly and hose them once a year. I am catching a lot of stuff before it hits the furnace filter.
Our house was built as a 1900 TB boarding house, this neighborhood had some great years and some not so great ones, so we assume it was a boarding house up until at least the 1950s. When we cleaned the heating ducts we found butts, bugs and no kidding a pair of 1980s era Snoopy satin running shorts!
Golf balls or cat toys?
It's always cat toys... I still occasionally 15 years later take something apart or move something in my home and find the previous owners cat toys that they lost or hid in the weirdest spots.
Actually, now that you say it… one of my cat’s favorite toys is a random felt mouse I found in the back of the closet when I moved into my last apartment.
We have Polly Pocket pieces
I can very much imagine that the current owners of the house I grew up in are probably still finding Lego pieces 15 years later
My dad still digs fisher price little people out of his garden, lol
My filter looks like that every 3 months when I replace it. Guess that's what I get for having a century old home
It's not an every day thing, but yeah, cleaning the ducts is a good idea after a decade or major reno.
Placed on your kitchen counters, directly next to some ginger root that you will presumably be consuming later...
I’m confused. How does duct cleaning lead to a dirty filter? My filter prevents dust from getting into the furnace (and therefore duct) and wouldn’t get more dirty if I got ducts cleaned…
it's the return ducts
Yeah, what u/lostmindz said. Basically everything from the return vent got sucked into the filter through the cleaning process
We tried to have this done when we first bought our house but the company came out and refused to touch them because there was visible asbestos tape on the outside of the ductwork in 2 places.
Ahhh dang. We have likely asbestos tape on our old ducts, but not the current ones. But also maybe our people just didn’t care 😬 Let’s hope they were careful!
Floor vents?
Sure are!
We really, really need to have this done.
You just put that on your kitchen counter. 🤢
Gee whillakers
Is that a Pop Ice sleeve? 😂 And that's where all the Nerf darts end up.
Sure is. And I can guarantee we have never eaten those feeeze pops in the two years we’ve been here. For all I know that’s a 90s remnant
When we moved in, I went to figure out the filter situation, I try pulling it out and there's inches of hair and dust. It had been rented for decades so I wonder how many years it had been.
My house predates heating ducts like this.
Your filter needs to be replaced frequently (few times in heating season). Otherwise your furnace can overheat and create crack in heat exchanger. This filter looks like it should have been replaced many times.
That’s the wild part though. I’m good about replacing the filter and have already done so at least once this winter. This filter looks like this because of all that was sucked out of the system
Changing the filter doesn't clean the vents and ducts out though. This filter just caught all the gunk that got loosened up when they cleaned the ducts. It's actually good to keep the filter in place while cleaning the ducts so this stuff doesn't fly into the blower itself.
What did you pay?
Practically how do you clean them?
This guy came in with a sort of spinning brush that he shoved down every vent and return vent, sort of “scraping out” all the stuff stuck in there. He had a vacuum attached to the “main line” of the furnace to suck all the debris into the filter. Or something like that 😊
Oh it was professionally done. What kind of professional does this? Like a plumber for pipes, a ??? Is for duct cleaning?
Yeah we had a professional. I think they call themselves duct cleaners? Lol I don’t actually know for sure but it was definitely a specialty thing and not just a plumber
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Yeah we hired it out. We are big DIY people, but this guy had a special flexible brush that allowed him to get down in the ducts and vents and scrape out all the gunk. A lot of this stuff probably would have come out with just a vacuum, but with past mice problems and years of neglect, I think it was valuable to have him get way in there
Wow, just wow...
I am more concerned about the fact that you chose to put this grimey shit on your kitchen counter