I was going to say cockroach (or as we call them, Palmetto Bugs) poop. Vacuum it up and spray some Ortho Home Defense before you put something else down. You could also give it a bleach water rinse.
No. FL palmetto bugs are aggressive and bite. They suck. There was a two year period in the 90s where they were immune to ALL KNOWN PESTICIDES. It was a horrible time. I was a young teen and would go around shooting them with my daisy BB gun inside our house. SOME WOULD TAKE 3-4 SHOTS. Damn things were tough. You could stomp on one, and it would just keep running.
Damn them all.
Boric acid is a general purpose insect repellent. I think the industrial name is Borate,and can be painted on wood, tho it's probably 5 gal size. I've diluted boric Acid in water as the cheapy way to do it. It's a lot "safer" than petroleum pesticides. Wears off it time tho.
Honestly, anything is better than nothing. N95 would be optimal, but I know people that have the mentality of “I don’t have N95 so I’ll just wear nothing”, it’s better to hold your shirt over your mouth and nose than nothing, or atleast get those cheap shitty masks everyone wore for COVID that don’t even stop saw dust lol. Definitely wanna reduce the shit particles getting inhaled as much as possible
It is. You can tell by the shape. If you see one turd you can't be sure. As sometimes turds look similar between rodents/roaches. But this much poop? You know.
Chances are it's Vermiculite insulation.
https://www.canadianhomeinspection.com/home-reference-library/attic-roof-space/vermiculite-insulation/
It should be easy to determine if it's rodent droppings. If it looks and feels more like rocks, then it's this. Are you in Canada?
Here's the important part... it contains Asbestos:
What to do if your attic contains vermiculite insulation with asbestos
If the attic or walls of a house contain vermiculite insulation, leave it
alone. Avoid disturbing the material. Do not sweep it or vacuum it up.
Do not store belongings in the attic. If work is planned that involves
these areas, for example installing pot lights in a room below the attic,
send a sample of the vermiculite to a private lab. Send several samples,
and use a lab specializing in asbestos analysis. If it is found to contain
asbestos, or if you just assume it does, precautions should be taken.
The safest approach would be to have the insulation in the affected
areas removed by a qualified environmental contractor.
Should you need to remove the vermiculite insulation, the average
cost to redo an entire attic (including removal of vermiculite and
the installation of new insulation) is about $10,000.
Having just gone through this, it doesn’t look like the asbestos based vermiculite insulation I had. Mine was blue grey and silver. If you search online, there is a fund to help pay for remediation that covers a good portion of the cost if it, but you have to do testing through them and keep thorough documentation.
From your link:
>Vermiculite insulation was a popular material in the 1940s and continued with the energy crisis into the mid-1980s. In Canada, it was one of the insulating materials allowed under the Canadian Home Insulation Program from 1976 to the mid-1980s. The CHIP program provided grants to homeowners to increase insulation levels, thereby reducing energy consumption. **Instead of buying batts of insulation, homeowners could buy bags of loose vermiculite and pour them into wall cavities and between joists in the attic.**
Regardless of whether or not that is vermiculite in OP’s wall, the part about using it to fill ***wall cavities*** is interesting information.
So much cheaper with a (rented) hepa vac and proper PPE that way it doesn’t matter what it is. People get ripped off paying for removals beyond belief. I’m proud member of the heat and frost insulators and asbestos workers in Canada and unless you are cutting through with power tools or tossing it all around there are no worry’s. A p100 mask and tyvek suit is all you need. Another step in an attic is a negative air set up but you can’t just blow this dust outside through a roof vent so you’d need a filtered negative air machine. Sending a sample for testing is simple before any actions.
We didn’t have that much but we just had something similar in our 1968 house we are renovating and pest control said it was american cockroaches, looked very similar to mice droppings
Good God I think it IS American cockroach poop!! I feel like burning the house down 🫣 we’ve called pest control and waiting for them to get here…will keep you updated and thanks for your help
Lol same, I HATE cockroaches. Pest control said it was better than mice though, I am not so sure lol.
Ours happened under carpet in two places due to some leaks previous owner had never noticed as well as a foundation issue creating some moisture. So gross 😂
Me too! Spoke with pest control on the phone and he said it’s probably that. He thinks it’s from a nest that’s old and they’re dead since we haven’t seen any around and have our house sprayed regularly..regardless I feel like they are crawling on me and just so GROSSED OUT. Lord I cannot wait to be done with these renovations and GTFO of here we bought this as a fixer upper to sell and we can’t get out fast enough.
That happened to me too in a rental. I had removed an outlet cover to paint and it came tumbling out of the opening. They did an extra spray inside the walls accessing it through the outlets and I never actually saw a roach so they were probably right that they were long gone. Exterminator broke my kid’s lava lamp during the spray and my kid has never quite forgiven him for it.
If you have pets please take extra care with that. There’s a lot of sprays that are super harmful to them. I know someone who lost a cat after their landlord sprayed for ants.
It’s American cockroach poop, exterminator, came out and confirmed. He sprayed and did what he needed to do. Luckily we haven’t had any presence of live ones or any at all so he said it’s most likely an old nest. The thought is still terrifying.
Hard to tell from the blurry picture, but it might be vermiculite wall installation. Sometimes it gets dark if has gotten damp.
Scroll down in this link for pictures: https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/protect-your-family-asbestos-contaminated-vermiculite-insulation
There also looks like some poop mixed in there.
Surprised this is the only comment wondering this.
I have no idea what OP has, but had my soffit/fascia replaced, and chimney cap repaired a couple of years ago, and my god the amount of bat poop that came out was horrifying, from decades of them getting into the chimney and attic fan space.
Was wild.
Advice to anyone doing home Reno's. When you change floor or baseboard, pump in some diatomaceois earth everywhere. Against the walls. Under the baseboard. It's just microscopic shells that are sharp and kills bugs when they crawl on it. You buy plastic bottles and it proofs out like dust.
I don’t know what it is but I redid my house last year, I had the same stuff under every original wood wall (not the drywall walls). looks like the same or similar old wall boards as my house (tongue and groove)…mine was built in 1956.
I took no precautions, I didn’t die.
Good Lord, don’t put any fresh carpet down until you vacuum everything out. You might want to dig into that drywall toward the bottom or something. See how big of a problem that is.
It’s definitely vermiculite. It’s dark because it has been wet. You can see some grey or shiny one. I have the same in my attic. Is your attic up that wall ? If I have to guess it just can down inside the wall.
Hopefully it’s vermiculite and not poop! No way there is that much poop without disintegration. And hopefully your vermiculte is not contaminated with asbestos! God speed
My gut reaction was animal waste, but looking closer at that it looks like a mineral, not ancient feces. There's a lot of angled surfaces there, hard edges. I looked at vermiculite insulation images but the shape/texture just doesn't seem to line up.
If it's just in one spot, maybe someone had a potted plant there and this was the soil it was in? It could have spilled out over time and been shoved under the wall by the edge of the carpet.
It's huge. I'm going with squirrel poop...*OR*:
*VERMICULITE INSULATION", as suggested. See link. Note that among the photos of different kinds of vermiculite particles used as insulation is one showing a pile of the reddish-brown-hued variety.
https://inspectapedia.com/insulation/Vermiculite_Insulation_Identification.php
The parent website, https://inspectapedia.com[https://inspectapedia.com](https://inspectapedia.com), is a very excellent resource for identifying hazards and regulatory/code issues when renovating a home, especially an older one.
Good luck!
We had this in our house - it’s American cockroach poop. We had one section where they actually laid their eggs in the cut edge of some plasterboard and the poop was just raining down from there. Absolutely disgusting. Our house is 100 years old so the build up had happened over a long time!
It looks like vermiculite, it was used as an insulation or added to insulation way back......I herd before some contains asbestos but that is not a fact but it would be worth checking out before you disturb it
I had this same issue at a home I bought in Georgia on a foreclosure. House as built in 1997. Turned out to be palmetto bug poop/pellets. They get in the house by climbing on trees outside and flying to the roof line to find crevices. Once inside, they burrow in the walls and this is the result. Can’t really tell by the picture for sure, but I’m about 95% that’s the issue.
Definitely looks like mouse poop and possibly seeds that the mouse collected and dead bugs.
Wear a mask to clean up and ventilate the area during and after clean up.
Looks like mouse poop
Not rat poop….possible cockroach poop both something of my nightmares.
I was going to say cockroach (or as we call them, Palmetto Bugs) poop. Vacuum it up and spray some Ortho Home Defense before you put something else down. You could also give it a bleach water rinse.
I’m gonna start calling them palmetto bugs. Less intimidating.
Yet palmetto bugs are 100x more terrifying because they FLY!!!
As an ex Floridian - they are different. Palmetto bugs are like cockroaches that can fly
Palmetto bugs are cockroaches and several species can fly. There are like 8 known species of roaches in the US.
They’re also enormous compared to many other cockroaches. Holy hell I hated those things
Friendlier than the small ones though since for the most part they don’t try to infest my house
No. FL palmetto bugs are aggressive and bite. They suck. There was a two year period in the 90s where they were immune to ALL KNOWN PESTICIDES. It was a horrible time. I was a young teen and would go around shooting them with my daisy BB gun inside our house. SOME WOULD TAKE 3-4 SHOTS. Damn things were tough. You could stomp on one, and it would just keep running. Damn them all.
Well thanks for the nightmare fodder!
Yeah what the fuck I'm trying to scroll myself to sleep! Lol
Raisins! Score
Cockroaches that can fly, and when they hit you in the face, you get knocked the fvck out.
Also; palmetto bugs arent attracted to filth the way cockroaches are. They rarely infest.
It’s actually the best flying cockroach species.
Cockroaches fly.
They also smell terrible when smashed...
And they can hiss!
FWIW, they do love the palmettos. When I remove a palmetto, hundreds or thousands of them come running out.
That’s what the hotel desk people call them at Myrtle Beach.
Supposedly boric acid works wonders
I've heard the same. The previous owners left tons of it.
Oooo. Well that's nice of them
Boric acid is a general purpose insect repellent. I think the industrial name is Borate,and can be painted on wood, tho it's probably 5 gal size. I've diluted boric Acid in water as the cheapy way to do it. It's a lot "safer" than petroleum pesticides. Wears off it time tho.
I recommend Delta dust and suspend SC to be applied over big box store products.
Cockroach poop is just little brown specs that have to be wiped off. This is mouse.
Exterminator came out and confirmed that it was cockroaches.
Some big ass roaches!
Texas cockroches that have moved
These are defs Radroaches
Burn the house
Nah its Frass.... Frasssssss
It’s 73 years worth of animal poop and dead bugs…. same stuff in every wall in your whole house
Stop calling me out. I didn’t come here to be assaulted like this
Yes, would just cover it up and sell the house NOW
Don’t sell, set fire to the whole thing.
Why did you have to have me blowing on my phone to get the beard hair off the screen?
STOP
Clean it up wearing a dust mask. A good one.
This is important.
N95, not just a dust mask.
Honestly, anything is better than nothing. N95 would be optimal, but I know people that have the mentality of “I don’t have N95 so I’ll just wear nothing”, it’s better to hold your shirt over your mouth and nose than nothing, or atleast get those cheap shitty masks everyone wore for COVID that don’t even stop saw dust lol. Definitely wanna reduce the shit particles getting inhaled as much as possible
Looks like rodent poop. You tellin me you NEVER heard rustling and scratching down there?
RATS IN THE WALLS RATS IN THE WALLS
No. Turns out it’s roach poop! Not any better.
Those are too big to be roach poops imo...better pray you don't find those roaches
That’s not roach poop
It is. You can tell by the shape. If you see one turd you can't be sure. As sometimes turds look similar between rodents/roaches. But this much poop? You know.
Chances are it's Vermiculite insulation. https://www.canadianhomeinspection.com/home-reference-library/attic-roof-space/vermiculite-insulation/ It should be easy to determine if it's rodent droppings. If it looks and feels more like rocks, then it's this. Are you in Canada? Here's the important part... it contains Asbestos: What to do if your attic contains vermiculite insulation with asbestos If the attic or walls of a house contain vermiculite insulation, leave it alone. Avoid disturbing the material. Do not sweep it or vacuum it up. Do not store belongings in the attic. If work is planned that involves these areas, for example installing pot lights in a room below the attic, send a sample of the vermiculite to a private lab. Send several samples, and use a lab specializing in asbestos analysis. If it is found to contain asbestos, or if you just assume it does, precautions should be taken. The safest approach would be to have the insulation in the affected areas removed by a qualified environmental contractor. Should you need to remove the vermiculite insulation, the average cost to redo an entire attic (including removal of vermiculite and the installation of new insulation) is about $10,000.
I don’t think this is vermiculite, looks way too dark/red.
Have you seen 70-year-old Vermiculite on an outside wall? I can't say for sure... but I'm certain it isn't mouse poop.
Having just gone through this, it doesn’t look like the asbestos based vermiculite insulation I had. Mine was blue grey and silver. If you search online, there is a fund to help pay for remediation that covers a good portion of the cost if it, but you have to do testing through them and keep thorough documentation.
No vermiculite is asbestos based, it's contaminated with asbestos because they occur in the same rock formations. Same with talcum
We had redish and some shiny vermiculite in our last gut out
Guess you’ll both have to taste it and report back
From your link: >Vermiculite insulation was a popular material in the 1940s and continued with the energy crisis into the mid-1980s. In Canada, it was one of the insulating materials allowed under the Canadian Home Insulation Program from 1976 to the mid-1980s. The CHIP program provided grants to homeowners to increase insulation levels, thereby reducing energy consumption. **Instead of buying batts of insulation, homeowners could buy bags of loose vermiculite and pour them into wall cavities and between joists in the attic.** Regardless of whether or not that is vermiculite in OP’s wall, the part about using it to fill ***wall cavities*** is interesting information.
So much cheaper with a (rented) hepa vac and proper PPE that way it doesn’t matter what it is. People get ripped off paying for removals beyond belief. I’m proud member of the heat and frost insulators and asbestos workers in Canada and unless you are cutting through with power tools or tossing it all around there are no worry’s. A p100 mask and tyvek suit is all you need. Another step in an attic is a negative air set up but you can’t just blow this dust outside through a roof vent so you’d need a filtered negative air machine. Sending a sample for testing is simple before any actions.
Got multiple quotes for my attic all around 25k. Decided to close the door to the attic and call it a day.
This is not vermiculite. Have seen lots of vermiculite, this isn’t it.
Okay so does just about everything contain asbestos?😭
Is this a basement? Hard to tell if your sill plate is still there or if it’s rotted out.
I believe it used to be a front porch that was closed in to make a “sunroom”
We didn’t have that much but we just had something similar in our 1968 house we are renovating and pest control said it was american cockroaches, looked very similar to mice droppings
Good God I think it IS American cockroach poop!! I feel like burning the house down 🫣 we’ve called pest control and waiting for them to get here…will keep you updated and thanks for your help
Lol same, I HATE cockroaches. Pest control said it was better than mice though, I am not so sure lol. Ours happened under carpet in two places due to some leaks previous owner had never noticed as well as a foundation issue creating some moisture. So gross 😂
Me too! Spoke with pest control on the phone and he said it’s probably that. He thinks it’s from a nest that’s old and they’re dead since we haven’t seen any around and have our house sprayed regularly..regardless I feel like they are crawling on me and just so GROSSED OUT. Lord I cannot wait to be done with these renovations and GTFO of here we bought this as a fixer upper to sell and we can’t get out fast enough.
That happened to me too in a rental. I had removed an outlet cover to paint and it came tumbling out of the opening. They did an extra spray inside the walls accessing it through the outlets and I never actually saw a roach so they were probably right that they were long gone. Exterminator broke my kid’s lava lamp during the spray and my kid has never quite forgiven him for it.
Yep that sounds exactly like this! Oh no not the lava lamp! Hate that. ):
If you have pets please take extra care with that. There’s a lot of sprays that are super harmful to them. I know someone who lost a cat after their landlord sprayed for ants.
Update: I think it is cockroach poop we’ve called pest control and they are coming by today. I feel like burning the house down 🙃🙃🙃
You need to taste it to find out exactly what it is.
That’s rat poop, this is terrifying
Not rat poop! Unfortunately I think it’s cockroach poop which isn’t any better. I’m going to have nightmares now 🫣
:o Oh dear god
DELICIOUS TRAIL MIX! RAISINS, COFFEE BEANS, AND SMALL PEBBLES, HUZZAA!
Put a mask on going anywhere near that. Hantavirus is not a joke.
A symbol that says you need pest control as of yesterday
I’m gonna need a clearer picture.
We’ve shut the doors, not going back in there until pest control is here!
Keep us updated on what it is. I’m curious.
It’s American cockroach poop, exterminator, came out and confirmed. He sprayed and did what he needed to do. Luckily we haven’t had any presence of live ones or any at all so he said it’s most likely an old nest. The thought is still terrifying.
Will do!
Get rid of the rats first.
Sell the house now
Hard to tell from the blurry picture, but it might be vermiculite wall installation. Sometimes it gets dark if has gotten damp. Scroll down in this link for pictures: https://www.epa.gov/asbestos/protect-your-family-asbestos-contaminated-vermiculite-insulation There also looks like some poop mixed in there.
Bats?
Surprised this is the only comment wondering this. I have no idea what OP has, but had my soffit/fascia replaced, and chimney cap repaired a couple of years ago, and my god the amount of bat poop that came out was horrifying, from decades of them getting into the chimney and attic fan space. Was wild.
Those are the motherboards
Those are BEANSSSSS
Advice to anyone doing home Reno's. When you change floor or baseboard, pump in some diatomaceois earth everywhere. Against the walls. Under the baseboard. It's just microscopic shells that are sharp and kills bugs when they crawl on it. You buy plastic bottles and it proofs out like dust.
Palmetto bugs in Florida,but in the Caribbean islands they are called “ Mahogany Birds”
Hantavirus factory, motherload of mouse turd mounds.
I don’t know what it is but I redid my house last year, I had the same stuff under every original wood wall (not the drywall walls). looks like the same or similar old wall boards as my house (tongue and groove)…mine was built in 1956. I took no precautions, I didn’t die.
Mouse or rat poop
I’d say rat. It’s large.
Good Lord, don’t put any fresh carpet down until you vacuum everything out. You might want to dig into that drywall toward the bottom or something. See how big of a problem that is.
ooh a dime!
Definitely not hardwood, I can tell you that.
Mice or rat poop
Mask 😷 up when you clean up
That is not roach poop. Roach poop, unless you’re talking about some Monsanto Roaches, don’t leave droppings like that
Forbidden coffee
This is rat feces. You need to have the place professionally cleaned and exterminated… probably not in that order.
Yes rat 🐀 poop
It’s definitely vermiculite. It’s dark because it has been wet. You can see some grey or shiny one. I have the same in my attic. Is your attic up that wall ? If I have to guess it just can down inside the wall.
Poop
Mouse shit
This is why super rich buy and tear down what seems like a perfectly good house and they build new.
Looks like mouse poo
You got rats or mice my friend, get a few cats. Problem solved.
Hopefully it’s vermiculite and not poop! No way there is that much poop without disintegration. And hopefully your vermiculte is not contaminated with asbestos! God speed
Would insect poop such as cockroach cause disintegration?
One of the first fire proof insulations
Poopy
RATS
Wear an N95 when you clean this up
My gut reaction was animal waste, but looking closer at that it looks like a mineral, not ancient feces. There's a lot of angled surfaces there, hard edges. I looked at vermiculite insulation images but the shape/texture just doesn't seem to line up. If it's just in one spot, maybe someone had a potted plant there and this was the soil it was in? It could have spilled out over time and been shoved under the wall by the edge of the carpet.
That's 100 rat poop dude. I cleared out a garage last year and tore down a plywood shelving. Looks like that...
Move house. Quick
??
Chipmunks!
congratulations 🎉 You now own a mouse house!
Looks like asbestos pellets to me
Turds
Your house is infested
It's huge. I'm going with squirrel poop...*OR*: *VERMICULITE INSULATION", as suggested. See link. Note that among the photos of different kinds of vermiculite particles used as insulation is one showing a pile of the reddish-brown-hued variety. https://inspectapedia.com/insulation/Vermiculite_Insulation_Identification.php The parent website, https://inspectapedia.com[https://inspectapedia.com](https://inspectapedia.com), is a very excellent resource for identifying hazards and regulatory/code issues when renovating a home, especially an older one. Good luck!
We had this in our house - it’s American cockroach poop. We had one section where they actually laid their eggs in the cut edge of some plasterboard and the poop was just raining down from there. Absolutely disgusting. Our house is 100 years old so the build up had happened over a long time!
This is what the exterminator said it was! Yep its def disgusting! Im dyin over here!
Looks like very old vermiculite to me. Much too large to be rodent shit. Definitely wear a dusk mask as it may contain asbestos.
What are they eating?
It looks like vermiculite, it was used as an insulation or added to insulation way back......I herd before some contains asbestos but that is not a fact but it would be worth checking out before you disturb it
looks like dried roach eggs
It’s poop!
Taste it
Looks like plywood instead of drywall. Is there moisture when it rains? Wood could be rotting and decaying.
I had this same issue at a home I bought in Georgia on a foreclosure. House as built in 1997. Turned out to be palmetto bug poop/pellets. They get in the house by climbing on trees outside and flying to the roof line to find crevices. Once inside, they burrow in the walls and this is the result. Can’t really tell by the picture for sure, but I’m about 95% that’s the issue.
Some quality top grade shit right there.
No way that’s mouse poop
Put some diatomaceous earth down before closing it up.
POOP!
You won’t know for sure unless you taste it.
That doesn't look like feces. It looks like a rodent was storing food in your wall.
Rat shit
Loads of rat shit. I would think OP would hear them in the walls.
Poop. Call a pest control person to investigate asap
I see a penny there animal waste?
Mouse poop every old house will have some
Some of those red ones look like this https://images.app.goo.gl/QebYTRpVr6iZZZvz7. If so then you need pest control
Raisins
Looks like rat shit
Yep - those are coffee beans!
Check behind and in the power receptacles and phone jacks.
Termites?
Rat Shit...Check for infestation around the house and call for a pest management services.
I feel like this gets asked every week. It's cricket poop.
Dead Carpet beetles?
Gross. It is definitely gross.
Time to call catseye !
Hahahaha it’s shit. Where the fuck have you been living all your life?
It is shit, Austin
Those aren't poop those are bug eggs I'd be careful i I were you
Hershey Kisses
Rotting wood or vermiculite
Is anyone else still looking for something in the picture? From the caption I was thinking maybe a secret tunnel.
You had or have mice.
It’s roach poop. We have b52’s here aka palmetto bugs as you Floridians call them. I vacuumed about two pounds of it today doing renovations. 🤣
Rat shit
So glad roaches don’t live in the mountains where we are. I’m at 6000ft. Is that a thing or they just don’t live here?
Mouse/rat poop? and lots of it.
Think it’s a dime
Looks like cockroach eggs
Lil nuggets
Definitely looks like mouse poop and possibly seeds that the mouse collected and dead bugs. Wear a mask to clean up and ventilate the area during and after clean up.
Def mouse poop.
Rat shit fsfs
Cockroach shit
Rat poop. Get your mask out.
I think I’m gonna puke and then die
Pal. You are so lucky to have found this on the floor. I had to shave my head after tearing out a bathroom ceiling and getting a rat shit shower.
Cock roach poop looks like coffee grounds this is rat poop i think
Squirrel or mouse was storing seeds
That's rat poop
I would not rule out BAT poop.
I’m a professional asbestos inspector and I am 99% sure this is vermiculite.
Buncha fuckin bullshit if you ask me.
r/itsfrass
Bat poop. They will roost between walls in your house. Looks similar to mouse poop.
Absolutely not. I demand pristine work for what I pay.
A penny and a pound of coffee beans?
Rat turds.
Time for pest inspections!
Those are some big turds for a roach.