Cleaning after excessive RAID use?

[Remy]

Good news! After some apparently necessary drama, the mean, crazy girl finally moved out! Unfortunately, I had to be shorted on sleep a few days and fail a math test, but I think it was worth it.

The bad news is that she used to spray RAID in her room for spiders. When she used cleaning products (which was rare) she used excessive amounts, and she hated spiders, so I am certain that she used a lot of it.

Does it break down over time? How do I clean it? We have hard wood floors, so did it soak into the wood and make the wood poisonous?

I like the idea of making that room in to a bird room in the future,or maybe a bird room/study for me, but it has to be safe first.

 

[DebsFlock]

What's the condition of the finish on the wood? If it's still in good shape, the floor should be pretty well sealed and it's unlikely the RAID really soaked into the wood. You probably don't want the birds chewing on the flooring anyway!

Pesticides are typically a more immediate risk for fish than birds, not that you'd want your birds to have direct exposure to the stuff. While the runoff can affect fish, it's not reported to affect bird populations.

If the room still reeks of the stuff, I'd worry. If not, a normal spring cleaning should do the trick. If you know exactly what type of RAID product she used, you can pull the MSDS sheet on it here: SC Johnson Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) Library

I looked at the MSDS for their spider and scorpion product and unfortunately there was no useful info on the evaporation rate. But those kind of products usually are fairly volatile and quite water soluble.

Personally I'd vacuum thoroughly, mop the floor with something like Murphy's oil soap, wipe down the walls with a mild detergent, air it out for a couple of days and not worry about it. I'd toss the water on the dirt outside rather than running it down the drain. You might want to replace anything very porous like curtains or rugs.

 

[Remy]

The floors need to be refinished. They were carpeted in the '70s, and that room doesn't appear to have been refinished since then. It's on the list. I don't want birds chewing on the wood floor, but I know how beaky they can be. Puck would often lick whatever he happened to be standing on, so I tried to keep him off the floor.

I'm not sure what the stuff smells like, but the room still smells like her perfumed products pretty strongly, so I opened the windows.

I'm not exactly sure which product it was, but it was a red spray bottle, which as far as I can tell, most closely fits the roach and ant spray (neither of which were a problem, by the way). The MSDS says not to eat it or breathe it, but it doesn't say how long it breaks down. I've noticed some of the sprays say they kill things for a certain amount of time, from "on contact" to "up to six months" depending on the product. =\

 

[DebsFlock]

You definitely don't want birds in the house while the floorsa un is being refinished, FWIW. Youd need to vacate until it was cured and well aired out. Ventilation is your friend...

 

[Remy]

The raid was only used in her room, not in the rest of the house. I have the windows open now.

I am definitely not putting a bird in that room until I am positive it is safe. When we do refinish them, or when there is anything chemically going on (painting, etc.), there are never birds in the house.

 

[DebsFlock]

Painting with low or zero VOC paint is fairly safe. You could potentially even have the birds in the same room with the paint. However, refinishing wood floors probably means vacating for several days, humans included. It's a whole other level of fumes. Just wanted to warn you!

 

[Remy]

That's good to know. I've heard of low VOC paint, but I didn't know it was THAT safe. I can always have a bird stay at my boyfriend's house for a couple days. The doves live outside though, so they should be safe, right?

Thanks for the warning! It's on the list of things to repair, but unfortunately there are many other repairs that are higher on the priority list. =\


Right now, to keep myself company, I decided to bring the pigeon, Hobo, in from outside. I found him as a fledgeling about 8 years ago, and he was running around a parking lot, unable to fly yet, so I kept him. Probably should have let him go, in retrospect, but he's big and healthy. He was never that crazy about humans, and picks on our other boy dove. Right now he's just sitting on the curtain rod staring at me, analyzing the situation, haha. So far he hasn't tried to flirt with anything, unlike Pablo.

 

[Remy]

For the record, I haven't had a chance to clean the room thoroughly yet (work + school = don't want to clean much). I've had a fan exhausting air out the window almost this entire time (with the exception of a few days), and it STILL smells like perfumey stuff, although it's a lot fainter now than it was. I was really hoping to have a bird room sooner, but it looks like I have my work cut out for me!