Why Should I Keep My Crawlspace Clean?
This one isn't too difficult to answer, because you
should keep everything as clean as possible, to prevent safety problems
and additional home repairs. Your crawlspace underneath your house is no
different.
If the crawlspace underneath your house isn't clean, but nobody ever
uses it or goes underneath their, what's the big deal. The biggest
problem with something like this, is that it can easily attract rodents
like rats and mice. If you have rodents, there is a good chance that you
might even have cats or other predators eventually making your
crawlspace, their new home.
Once this happens and you have cats, mice and rats living underneath
your house, you're going to have to deal with additional problems like
animal poop and decomposing animal corpses. I can't tell you how many
times I've found a dead rodent in an attic or crawlspace area.
Even if this isn't a big concern of yours and you're never planning on
entering your crawlspace area, if these areas remain cluttered and you
live in a cold damp climate, you could find yourself dealing with
ventilation problems. In case you don't know it, it's very important to
get rid of the moist air underneath your home, before it starts to cause
wood rot or create problems with mold.
Big deal, who cares about any of that stuff, I'm never going underneath
my house and I really don't care how many animals live underneath it. If
you have that attitude, I would like to warn you about something that
you will definitely understand, money.
You've lived in the house for almost 30 years and you've never cleaned
your crawlspace under the house. You notice that your living room floor
is starting to sag and it moves when you walk on it. You don't know
what's going on, so you contact a couple of contractors and they can't
get underneath the house, because it isn't clean and there is lots of
debris blocking the areas that they need access to.
They might not have your attention yet, but when they tell you that
their going to charge you $900, just to clear out debris so that they
can give you an estimate for the damages. There's a good chance that
this is the one thing that will get your attention and make you wish you
think twice about your crawlspace.
There's an old saying that,” Cleanliness is next to godliness.” I don't
know if that's true, but I do know that it's always better to keep your
property clean and free of debris, unless you don't care about safety,
structural problems and pest control.