Animal Poop in the Attic - Diseases from Wildlife Waste

01.08.2005 - If you've had wild critters living in your attic, it's a good idea to have the attic cleaned. Wild animals leave their waste behind when they inhabit an attic. This waste can carry a number of zoonotic diseases. There are at least 42 important diseases that people get by ingesting or handling food or water contaminated with animal feces, such as Campylobacter infection, which us found in animal feces, and causes gastrointestinal symptoms. There's also Leptospira infection. Humans get infected via contact of insulation containing urine from infected animals. Left untreated, leptospirosis can be quite serious. It can lead to liver failure, trouble breathing, kidney damage, brain and spinal cord infection, and, rarely, death. Symptoms vary widely but can include high fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches, and vomiting. There's also Salmonella infection, which people get via contact with animal feces. This often-severe gastrointestinal infection can cause severe kidney damage to young children. Then there's the diseases associated with parasites in animal waste, such as Toxoplasmosis. When a person gets the disease, it causes a flu-like illness and/or muscle aches and pains lasting for a month or even longer. There's also Tapeworm, which a person gets infected by swallowing an infected flea. This may be unlikely, but living in a home infested with wild animals certainly increases the chances. Down south here in Florida, there's a chance of Hookworm, which infest agents contaminated by animal feces. Heavy infections can be serious. There are other diseases, such as Cryptosporidiosis. This parasite cause mild to severe intestinal symptoms like diarrhea. It's not usually a dangerous infection, but another one that you'd rather not have. This is just a short list of the possible diseases associated with animal waste. The point of the attic decontamination is to kill these bacteriums and parasites, to eliminate the risk of disease transmission. There's a secondary purpose as well - the scent of the animal waste usually always draws new wildlife to the attic. Thus, eliminating the smell will eliminate this attracting odor.