Animals may bring viruses and infections in the attic. Rats, for instance, carry over 35 diseases and they can transmit them to humans by handling them or by contact with their urine, droppings, and others. If you may have been successful in your attempt to remove animals inside the area, this is only half of the job. The other half pertains to attic decontamination.

You need to make an effort to decontaminate the place to make sure that nothing will pose threat to the health of the whole family. This job may be difficult if you do it alone. You should ask help from some of the members of the household or you may consider hiring experts.

Before you start with sanitization, you have to prepare everything that you will need: brush, water, bleach solution or disinfectant, and fans. Buy disinfectant from a store or make your own bleach solution which comprises of 1 part bleach and 9 parts water. Place the bleach solution in a spray bottle. Turn on the fans and open all the windows and door so air will flow and the bad odor can come out. You will use the water as you rinse the area after you have eliminated contamination. Wear gloves and face mask as these will protect you as you perform attic decontamination.

Follow these steps for a more detailed method:

Step 1 – Spray the spots where there are urine, droppings, and nesting materials. Make sure that these are soaked with the bleaching solution so the viruses can be eliminated effectively. Wait for a few minutes before you remove them.

Step 2 – Pick up the urine, droppings, and nesting materials using paper towel. However, your gloves should be in your hands already. Put them in a garbage bag. Close it and then discard properly.

Step 3 – Brush the area comprehensively to see to it that no viruses will be left behind. Spray disinfectant again. Wash it with soap then rinse.

Step 4 – Hire professionals to remove insulation in the attic. Your insulation is contaminated with feces, urine, and others as well. It should be taken away and replaced. Because some insulation contains asbestos, you may not want to do this task yourself. Getting a sample and sending them to the laboratory for asbestos testing may take you more than the usual time. It may also be hazardous to your health as you may release some fibers as you do this.

More important, hiring the services of experts may ensure that the next insulation that will be installed in the attic will not pose risk to the health of the family and that it may even help save you some dollars from lowered energy cost.

It is important that you follow up attic decontamination with proofing. This job will let you make sure that no infestation will happen again in the attic. See to it that you have sealed up every entry way or else you will go over the same problem again. It is therefore critical that you locate all openings.

When a need for attic decontamination has been identified, the space must be cordoned off. Until the biohazardous situation has been remediated, no one without proper personal protective equipment should be permitted entry into the space until attic decontamination has occurred.

Depending on the type of contamination in an attic, HVAC and ventilation systems may need to be shut down until decontamination is completed. A situation involving rodent droppings provides a useful illustration as to why this needs to occur.

Rodent droppings have the propensity to carry hazardous and even potentially life-threatening germs or pathogens. The hantavirus is one such pathogen. The hantavirus is capable of surviving in rodent droppings for an extended period of time after feces dry out. When rodent droppings dry, the crumble very easily. When rodent droppings crumble, feces dust containing the hantavirus can be released into the air. The contaminated feces dust can be spread throughout a home via the HVAC or ventilation systems. This process can expose people throughout the residence to the prospect of contracting the virus by breathing in contaminated droppings dust.

Removal of Biohazardous Materials

The next phase of the attic decontamination process is the physical removal of biohazardous material that may be found in the space. Contamination by rodent droppings can also provide a helpful overview of how physical removal of biohazards from an attic is accomplished.

Biohazardous materials need to be eliminated from an attic as part of the decontamination process in order to restore the space to a safe condition. Moreover, these items must be safely removed so as not to harm those involved in the attic decontamination process.

When the biohazardous material that needs to be dispatched consists of rodent droppings, the removal process initially necessitates the saturation of feces with an appropriate sanitizing solution. There are commercial products available from retailers like Home Depot. In the alternative, an affective sanitizing solution can be made by combining 1-part chlorine bleach with 9-parts water.

Rodents droppings are saturated with the sanitizing solution, which is left in place for 20 minutes. After that time, the feces and associated waste (rodent nests, for example) are removed and placed into a durable (perhaps even double layered) plastic bag.

When this is completed, a second application of the sanitizing agent on the contaminated areas is recommended. In this instance, the solution can be applied to the contaminated areas and left to dry.

Because biohazards in an attic can cover an expansive area, more may need to be done to decontaminate the space than what has been presented thus far. Two other steps may be necessary.