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.