Rats are dangerous
Rats are dramatically different animals from mice. While mice will infest your home and defecate and urinate all over the biggest danger they offer is hantavirus which is not something that has infected anyone in North America in the past fifty years. It can be cleaned with a vacuum, do not use a broom, and bleach is strong enough to sterilize the area. Rats, however, have a much more dangerous diet than mice and their feces are filled with bacteria and viruses that can kill a person. This is because rats live in the sewers and eat long-dead animals. They swim in sewer water and can even swim through pipes and into your toilet. This is why rat feces needs to be cleaned far more carefully than mouse feces, mice do not live in sewers and do not track human waste into your home.
Cleaning rat feces is dangerous
If you want to clean this feces yourself you will first need to get yourself personal protective equipment. Do not skimp on this step. You will need a good face mask, think N95. Nitrile gloves, plastic covers for your shoes, a visor or lab goggles to protect your eyes and plastic bags to put the feces in. Spray bottles to sterilize the mess before and after cleaning it and the right tools for the job. You cannot sweep or vacuum this mess as it will aerosolize the feces and make it air born, even an N95 mask cannot protect you from that.
Chemicals you will need
Bleach may seem like enough but the truth is it’s not very effective and is hard to get into the cracks and crevices of the house. On top of that, the real danger isn’t accessible to you at all, it’s inside the walls of the house and unless you plan on ripping down the drywall and removing the insulation you will still have rat feces in your home. You may think it will be fine to have it behind the walls but it’s not, the air in a house circulates and you will still be in danger. If the feces is on the carpet it will be everywhere in the house as well.
Professional cleaning
A professional pest control technician can deal with the feces issues in a way that won’t force you to renovate your entire house just to make it clean again. They will be able to clean the feces using an actual vacuum, making it much faster because their vacuum has a heap filter attached to the exhaust. The technical can clean all the feces with ease on any surface and then use a device called a commercial-grade fogger. This device can vaporize cleaners like hospital-grade botanical sterilizers into the air and mist it behind walls and into cracks and crevices. It will sterilize not just the carpet but the insulation inside of the walls creating a sterile environment inside and out that will be safe for you, your family and your pets even if your children decide to play construction with their bedroom wall.