HANTAVIRUS: Myself and Infant daughter at serious RISK

[Cduplacy]

I have never been more terrified in my entire life.
Me, my infant daughter, and my entire family are at risk for hantavirus.

I separated from my husband for domestic violence (convicted, no jail). I have a restraining order against him. I left the house and took the baby. He puts all of my stuff and her stuff in the shed to come pick up. We aren’t able to go get the stuff for about 3 weeks. I wasn’t worried about mice/rats because we had supersonic things in the walls of the shed to keep them out. Later I find out he removed them when he put our stuff in there.

My mother, sister, and I, with my 10 month old daughter with us, go up there with a uhual (he wasn’t there) and we are moving stuff with our bare hands, drinking water, feeding the baby (with our hands), picking up her toys she drops while playing that she then puts in her mouth (with bare hands), and, again, moving boxes, etc, with our BARE hands. We discover so much mouse poop all over stuff in there. Then we realize mouse poop was all over the stuff we had already moved. We continued to move stuff with our bare hands (not thinking about disease at all! We were just like oh gross!)until we were done and then used hand sanitizer.
We get home to move stuff and we are wearing gloves now, moving everything. My little brother helps us, he’s not wearing clothes. Finding more mouse poop. My gloves get ripped so now I’m not wearing gloves. We wash our hands but we were touching everything, you know?
The next day I’m going through the bags of stuff (with gloves) and I’m putting stuff in the laundry because I know it’s all gross and I get to the bottom and there is a live mouse(or rat it was fairly big) and so many babies. It had big cute eyes, grey, sort of long. And so I take it outside and put a towel down and dumb them on the towel form inside the bag. One baby mouse got away from the rest and I feel bad and move him (with glove) to the spot his mom is.
Go inside and wash my hands (I realize now i touched the door handle with my gloves and didn’t clean it)

Basically we were all so stupid, didn’t take any precautions, and now we are going to die??? Everything was infected with mouse poop and pee. I touched things all over the car, I touched my daughter, I fed my daughter, I’m sure I even touched my own face. I am literally terrified because of started as a joke about the bubonic plague and then I googled it and now I’ve come onto hantavirus. Have I killed myself, MY DAUGHTER, and my entire family????

Location: upstate New York, rural area, Susquehanna, shed

[NancyW]

and then I googled it and now I’ve come onto hantavirus. Have I killed myself, MY DAUGHTER, and my entire family???

You had me wanting to offer words of encouragement until the above sentence....

Sorry, but you brought this hysteria on yourself.

:shrug:

[lofwyr]

Do you drive every day? On average 32,000 Americans die in car accidents every year, and I am betting you don't give it a passing thought.

On average around 100 people die from hantavirus in a given year in the US, and this is the thing you are worried about? Out of the millions and millions, maybe billions of rodents in the US, and countless thousands of rodent feces contact humans have every day, roughly 350 people get hantavirus in an average year. Your odds of contracting hantavirus are staggeringly low. You are not at serious risk at all.

[ErinKC]

There were 5 cases of Hantavirus in New York state between 1993 and 2018.

---------- Post added at 15:15 ---------- Previous post was at 15:14 ----------

I just read that the CDC only reported 728 cases from 1993-2017, so that's actually an average of only 30 cases per year in the entire country.

[AMomentofClarity]

You had me wanting to offer words of encouragement until the above sentence....

Sorry, but you brought this hysteria on yourself.

:shrug:

I agree with this. OP, you’re obviously going through a very rough patch, and I think most on here understand and appreciate that. But you’re not doing yourself any favors by creating additional fear and hysteria.

[ErinKC]

I'll also add that I'm really sorry you're going through this. This is 100% something I would panic about even though the chances are so slim. It's the perfect target for anxiety.

If you're really worried I'd just put in a call to your doctor and explain the situation and see what they think.

[Sparky16]

Years ago I had a serious squirrel problem in my attic. Finally figured out where the little pests were getting in, and had a contractor fix it. However, I had to tackle cleaming up the worst of the squirrel poop in the bottom of a now unused heating duct myself. I won't go into the details, but it was not pretty. If I went through that and did not get hantavirus, I think you'll be just fine. Then there were the people I knew who had to clean out a major mouse infestation in a camper after the winter. Once again disgusting, but they were fine. Just give everything a good once over with some disinfectant cleaner, and wash any clothes the mice could touch, because yuck, you know?

[ErinKC]

I've been thinking about you all day. I want to also add that I'm so sorry about the situation you're in with your husband. You've obviously been through a lot of trauma, and adding this worry on top of it is so unfair. I hope that you and your baby are safely away from your abusive husband and you can get the help you need to get through both that situation and your anxiety. <3

[AnxiousJamie]

I feel your anxiety about this. I am recently over a hantavirus scare. This is week 5 and I’m not sick so I think I’m in the clear. I swept up deer mouse poop with a broom in a small interior closet without appropriate protection. There’s never been a known case in my state but I still freaked. To put your mind at ease about your child....in my reading about it, I read that children usually don’t have this disease. They aren’t sure why but think maybe it’s because they can’t breathe in as deeply as adults. Most victims are adult males.

So rationalize this. Has to be a certain type of mouse. Has to even have the virus (only 15-20% of deer mice have the virus). Has to have a certain viral load to spread the disease. Has to be a recent dropping. Has to be aerosolized to spread. All of this adds up to a pretty slim chance of contracting this disease.

[Crevan]

I went through that scare when we got a new house a few years back - the place was INFESTED. Really badly, because the old owner had just let it go forever (it smelled of mouse urine, even, until the whole place was fully gutted). Needless to say, my whole family was in there and we all made it out in one piece - but I was definitely scared! My dad did a lot of the cleaning and didn't even wear a mask or anything most of the time (I think he did when tearing apart the walls, but not because of the mice... he has one of those no care personalities I wish I could have!) And there are plenty of other people who would clean such a space out without any thoughts of this and they are fine, too.

You were already under stress, which tends to escalate health anxiety worries. I wish you well in getting through this.

[jules321]

I’m so sorry you had this experience. It would be stressful for most who do not have HA. I do think you should call your doctor and get their thoughts. Not because of hantavirus persay, but because it’s a reasonable precaution anytime there is a wildlife encounter (touching the poo or the baby rat). You will be ok, but the doctors (yours and pediatrician) might suggest some meds or follow up.