Attic Insulation Removal and Cleanup After Bats, Raccoons or Mice

What should you do before touching anything?

This site takes requests for wildlife removal in Ohio and cleans nothing itself, so these first steps are yours.

1. Leave droppings, nests and stained insulation where they are. Do not stir them up.
2. Work out which animal it was, or ask the operator to. The caution differs for bats, raccoons and mice.
3. Call and describe the droppings, where they are, and the insulation under them.

Is it safe to clean bat droppings out of an Ohio attic?

Treat it as a job with a known risk. A 2021 article in the Journal of Fungi by CDC authors says: “In the United States, Histoplasma mainly lives in the central and eastern states, particularly areas around the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys.” Histoplasma is the fungus that causes histoplasmosis.

The same article says that disturbing large accumulations of bird or bat droppings is a common feature of outbreaks. One of its examples is an outbreak among workers “shoveling bat droppings out of an attic.”

What that supports is narrow. A large accumulation, disturbed, is the situation the article describes. It does not put a number on the risk in any one attic. It is the reason this page says to leave an accumulation of bat droppings undisturbed.

Bats still roosting in the building are covered on the bat removal page.

Why is a raccoon latrine in the attic a special case?

A latrine is a spot where raccoons leave their droppings. An Ohio State University Extension fact sheet from 2008 says that in suburbs and cities raccoon latrines turn up on rooftops, around the base of a chimney, on decks and beneath them, and in attics.

The concern is raccoon roundworm. A CDC journal article calls it “increasingly recognized as a cause of serious or fatal larva migrans disease in humans and animals.” The Extension sheet says that where the raccoons carry the worm, its eggs can pile up at a latrine in large numbers.

On how common infection is, the same 2008 sheet reported that among Midwest and Northeast raccoon populations, infection rates can reach as high as 68 to 82 percent. It says in the same passage that prevalence can vary from place to place and season to season. It also says infection and egg shedding run higher in late summer and autumn than they do in spring.

For removing latrine material, the sheet calls for gloves, rubber boots and coveralls. Where the latrine is in a confined space such as an attic, it adds a particle face mask on top of those, to keep from breathing in dust that carries eggs.

That is information about the risk. It is not a set of instructions for doing the job yourself. Raccoons still using the attic are covered on the raccoon removal page.

Can mouse droppings and nests make you sick?

They can carry hantavirus. CDC says: “When fresh urine, droppings, or nesting materials of an infected rodent are stirred up, the virus can get into the air.” It adds that people who handle and clean up after rodents are at higher risk of exposure and should take precautions.

CDC names the deer mouse as the rodent that spreads the most common hantavirus behind hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the United States. Its main prevention step is keeping wild rodents out of the home: “Seal holes and gaps in your home or garage to keep rodents from entering these spaces.”

This page gives no case counts for Ohio.

Mice still in the house are covered on the rodent control page.

Does soiled insulation have to come out?

None of the sources read for this page describes taking out or replacing insulation, so this page states no rule and no method for it.

What the sources above do describe is what sits in an attic after animals: accumulated bat droppings, raccoon latrine material, and the urine, droppings and nests of rodents. Removing insulation that animals have soiled is work some operators do and some do not. Whether the insulation comes out, how much of it, and whether new insulation goes in are settled after an inspection. An operator inspects and explains the plan on the call.

Ohio Attic Animal Removal removes and cleans nothing itself. It is a referral service run by Local Core Group. Your call is passed to an independent operator when one works at your address, availability is settled on the call, and the operator sets the price and answers for its own license and insurance.

What should I ask an operator about attic cleanup?

• Whether they do cleanup at all, or only get the animals out.
• What they remove: droppings only, or the insulation under them as well.
• How much of the insulation they would take out, and how they decide.
• What protective gear the people doing the work wear for the animal involved.
• Whether they put in new insulation, or whether that is a separate contractor.
• What is written into the estimate, and what is left out.

Write the answers down. They are the basis for comparing one operator’s estimate with another’s.