Rodent Odor Removal in a New Canaan Basement Laundry Room

The homeowner called about an odor in the lower level. The basement laundry room has an open ceiling, with fiberglass batts pressed up between the floor joists and insulated ductwork running through the bays, and that is where the assessment on September 5 found the source. Across the ceiling the batts were stained in patches, the kind of discoloration mice leave where they nest and travel, and the edges of several joists carried dark staining where the batts met the wood. Insulation that mice have lived in cannot be cleaned in place, and while it stays up it keeps the odor in the room.

The plan on the signed estimate was to take it out and clean what was behind it. On September 17 the crew isolated the laundry room by sealing 6 mil poly across the walls, taped along the full perimeter, and set a HEPA negative air scrubber with lay-flat ducting and a carbon filter added for the odor. Then 260 square feet of insulation came down out of the joist bays and went straight into bags.

The exposed joist system was HEPA vacuumed in detail and bio cleaned, and the concrete floor underneath was HEPA vacuumed to pick up everything that came down with the batts and then bio cleaned as well. The debris left in one half pickup load. New insulation was not part of this job.