Burn them.
I'd be crying if it were me.

>Burn them.

At first I thought you meant the contractors, and that's not a bad idea, either.

Plumeriavine, I'm so sorry you've had to go through all this!

Oh no. Throw the towels away!!! Those creatures are so gross, I'm sorry. Good luck with the exterminator....he will need lots of traps.

Gross! but can't you just throw the towels in the washer with a bunch of bleach? can't be any different from the poop i've washed off all 3 of my kids clothes over the years?? right? gross, yes, but the bleach will kill anything. do you have a double rinse setting on your washer? heck, run them through the washer twice!

I'm sure you could wash them, but could you ever feel comfortable using them again? Throw them out.

do they have more work to finish there? i'd deduct the cost from anything i owed them... and the cost of fixing those holes and the exterminators! ugh!

you probably could put on a fumigation suit (LOL), mask and rubber gloves and sort of shake them out - away from the house. then rinse them, wash them, soak in bleach, wash again and again and again. and then use them for rags?? do you have a dog? use for drying off the dog? donate to a groomer?
I couldn't ever use them for dishes...

then go out and buy new ones. again. store in plastic and far away until all is repaired and no signs show up.

I'd wash them in hot water w/ a bit of chlorine bleach. Wash them again & hang them out to dry in the sunshine. If you're really squeamish, give them a boil.

I am never letting the big contractor rats in ever again.

The little rats will be tracked down and eliminated one by one by professionals and the cost will be recorded and passed along.

Hopefully we will be able to find all of the holes - - some may be behind cabinets that were mounted away from the walls. We'll have to check the attics and the basement and everywhere the big rats worked.

Copper mesh is what the exterminators say they will use to fix the construction holes.

Anyone have any other recommendations?

I would wash them with heavy bleach, hot water and a double rinse and then they would become rags in the garage and such. Although I would not use them as kitchen towels anymore it does not make sense to just completely throw them away.

Sorry you are having to deal with all of this, truly!!

This just gets worse and worse. Hope you're getting to the point where things start improving soon.

Wash them and use as cleaning rags. No point in throwing them away.

Don't know all the details of all your problems but wishing better days ahead for you.

I, personally, could never use the kitchen towels again but could use them as rags after giving them a good cleaning. Why is it that some tradespeople take no pride in their work? This is too awful for words. Those people should be ashamed of themselves.

my heart breaks every time i see more bad news from your "contractor" work. you've got a lawyer, right?

I would also wash them with a lot of bleach and then use them as rags....

toss them. Put them in a trash bag, tie tight and toss in the trash.

Better yet, give them to the Big Rat as a parting gift!

Toss them. It's not worth it. I wouldn't want to even handle them or take a chance they could come in contact with other things.
Sorry about your dilema. I am always amazed when DIYers post things that have gone wrong on this website and a certain few have to pipe in that basically it is their fault for not using a GC. It is pretty clear from your post and others that using a GC is no guarantee of a fool proof outcome.

Sorry to hear about the poor workmanship that caused such a problem in your kitchen.
I would definitely throw the towels away. Rats can carry disease. Just estimate the loss and add it to the contractor's bill.
I would imagine that exterminators may be able to catch the things and tell you what needs to be done, but you may have to find someone to fix the damage to your home.
I hope everything gets taken care of soon so that it will be a distant memory in no time.

I'd like to suggest washing and donating to your favorite thrift shop, not tossing them.

Aside from the "ick" factor, I don't see how its any different from cleaning cloth diapers, but if it grosses you out, I'd just toss 'em and ask for reimbursement. I still have some old diapers that I use for dust rags. No way I'd want to use them for dishes!

If you keep them, use them as cleaning rags but STILL ask for reimbursement because you can no longer use them for the purpose YOU purchased them for.

hopefully your cloth diapers are not sources of hautevirus. Or plague.

Wash? No! they are no longer towels or rags; they are now trash.

put on rubber gloves.

carefully shove into plastic trash bag so as not to spread
the droppings.

put outside in trashcan.

toss rubber gloves directly into trash can.

wipe out and spray lysol under cabinet.

take a shower.

go to humane society and adopt some cats!!

Then go buy some nice new towels :)

Brand new house and we had a terrible time with mice. I packed the small spaces around the water pipes with steel wool and then taped around the top. Since then there have been no more mice.

Wash the towels in colrox and use them. They will be fine. Such a waste to toss them.

Chris

Hmmm, I would put them in a sealed container AS IS.
I'd put EVERYTHING in there with them.
If you are going to court with this guy, to sue him, or to defend yourself against a lien he might place, then this would be better than a mere photo of the evidence. And, also get the exterminator to show you any HOLES they have to fill and put where they were on your blueprints or drawings to indicate they were in the areas this big rat worked over.

And I'd make sure it was a jury trial too. Homeowners who've been suckered by jacklegs such as this would be very sympathetic.

Have you reported him to the Better Business Bureau? And to the Chamber of Commerce, or any place in the state which maintains lists of local contractors? Be sure they add YOU to the list of references to call about quality of workmanship. Or lack there-of.

Also, I'd get some of the real curly steel wool balls and keep them in the house. I found a great use for that kind around some pipes. They might still make the same thing in copper at a higher price, but these would work nicely if not out in the weather. Rats cannot chew through the stainless either.

One place the exterminator might have to look is beneath the house. I discovered that squirrels and rats were entering the house where the drain went down and joined the sewer line. There was a HOLE--NO FLOORING AT ALL--beneath my bathtub. And they had an interstate access to my attic all the way up inside the plumbing wall. Well, I put a stop to it alright. Tore out the danged bathtub, put in a new tiny bathroom, and of course that means a new floor and VERY well sealed WALLS, and maybe one day I will trust a contractor to install a new bathtub in a new location. I still have nightmares about THAT shocking revelation.

I'm voting the towels are evidence if the holes go outside. Otherwise it might be hard to prove the rats were their fault and not already existing (eew). I'm in a neighborhood that recently had a rat population explosion. What I learned is that seeing evidence of one means there are many, many more that went undetected for some time. It can happen in the best of homes. The worst are when they do nothing.