Dead Animal Removal and Odor Control Service
What’s that smell?
Frankly, dead animal removal and odor control are not the most glamorous jobs that animal control technicians perform. To put it plainly, removing a dead, rotting animal from a building is pretty disgusting work.
Animals that get trapped and die inside of attics and other parts of buildings decompose rapidly in the Southern heat, and the dead animal stench can become unbearable.
Dead animal removal can be physically demanding work. The fine old buildings found in Atlanta and throughout Georgia and Alabama are full of nooks and crannies that give animals plenty of places to roam, hide, die, and stink, making dead animal removal a physically demanding and difficult job.
But dead animal removal is important work. Dead animals trapped in walls, ceilings, crawl spaces, and other places in a building can cause all sorts of problems:
- Dead animal odors are putrid and can last for many months.
- Dead animals can attract flies, beetles, and other insects.
- Displaced parasites such as fleas, ticks, lice, and mites often go looking for new homes when their hosts die and can spread serious diseases when they infest humans or domestic animals.
- Decomposing animals trapped in walls and ceilings can sometimes cause staining.
Removing dead animals from walls, ceilings, crawl spaces, and other structural areas is risky and should not be attempted by homeowners. Aside from the physical risks involved in finding and extracting the dead animal (and the often-nauseating dead animal stench), dead animals can transmit disease pathogens, especially when they have been infested with fly larvae or when displaced ectoparasites are looking for new hosts. Never touch a dead animal with your bare hands!
Finding and Removing Dead Animals
Flies buzzing around adjacent to a trapped, dead animal
Do you know what the most challenging part of dead animal removal is? Finding them in the first place. That’s where professional knowledge of wildlife biology comes in.
Understanding the habits and biology of the animal when it was alive is vital to finding its carcass after it’s dead. Obviously, the animal was alive when it got into your home. People don’t generally drag dead animals into the house with them when they come home from work. So, finding and removing a dead animal begins with thinking like a live one.
Dead rat removal, for example, begins with understanding the behavior of rats and then using that knowledge (along with the technician’s senses — especially his sense of smell) to determine where the rat was most likely to have traveled before it died.
It also helps if we know what kind of animal we’re looking for. Many times, we get called to remove a dead animal after a chemical rat control job was performed, and either a rat or some other animal ate the bait and died inside the house somewhere. In fact, one of the biggest reasons not to use poisons for rat control is that an animal may decide to drop dead in some hard-to-get-to area inside your home. (That’s one reason why we prefer to perform non-chemical rat control, by the way. )
Our animal control technicians apply their knowledge of animal behavior to dead animal removal work of all kinds, whether it be dead raccoon removal, dead bird removal, dead squirrel removal, dead rat removal, dead opossum removal…
Okay, okay, we’re sure you get the point. If a dead animal is stinking up your house and you want it removed, give us a call.
Dead Animal Cleanup and Odor Control
Getting rid of the odor from a dead animal begins with finding and removing the animal’s carcass and wastes. We also remove the contaminated insulation.
Most of the odor will disappear once the body and wastes are gone. But to ensure that odors from dead animals are eliminated quickly, we use a variety of non-toxic, biodegradable products that don’t just mask odors but eliminate dead animal odors through bacterial and enzymatic action.
This helps eliminate odors caused by dead animals and the fluids and by-products that ooze from their lifeless bodies.
Animal Exclusion and Animal Damage Repair
Finally, if an animal crawled into your home and died, chances are that sooner or later, others will follow. Not to worry: Rid-A-Critter is Georgia & Alabama’s leader in animal exclusion and animal damage repairs. We can track down the entryways that animals used to get into your home or building and make sure that new ones don’t get the same idea.
We also offer animal damage repair and insulation replacement to remove any odors, filth, or health risks created by animals who may have been infesting your attic or other insulated areas.
Please contact us for more information about animal carcass removal or any of our animal-control services.