How to remove a Dead Animal from the Attic

Your attic is one of the most common places in your home for animals to seek out. You may be wondering why they would choose your attic to come and die in, because that seems pretty rude. Well, all animals have a natural instinct to separate themselves and hide when they are about to die. An animal may have stumbled away from its group and into your attic before it finally passed away. More commonly, you may have had an animal in your attic and thought you got them out, but accidentally sealed them inside where they passed away. The last most common reason, is if you had a previous issue and used poisons rather than traps. The animal could have eaten the poison and chose to find a secluded spot to pass away.

Horse carcass
The dcomposed material might be good for your lawn, but not pets and small children

The first obstacle you’ll come across trying to remove a dead animal from your attic is the size of your attic. A lot of attics are tight spaces, making it difficult to crawl around in searching for a dead animal. Some, are only crawlspaces, making it impossible for anyone to get into! On the flipside, you may have a giant attic and your search may end up taking quite some time. Regardless of the size of your attic, your first step to remove a deceased animal is to find it, obviously. Another problem you can encounter when searching for a deceased animal is that it is more than likely buried under insulation. As an added obstacle, the insulation and ventilation in the attic often makes the smell much less noticeable than it is down in your main living space. So it may be difficult to “follow your nose” in the attic to find the animal.

Bovine carcass
Animal bones, as well as the soil around them, can still carry dangerous bacteria on them.

Occasionally, you can try to identify where in your attic the animal would be by following the smell in the house. If there is an odor particularly bad in one spot, you probably want to investigate that area of the attic thoroughly. Sometimes, if the animal has been there long enough, or was wounded, you may even have a stain on the ceiling that you can identify where the animal is located. If you have a crawlspace and aren’t able to fit inside to investigate the attic, you may have to cut a hole in the ceiling to be able to get to the animal.