5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Dog Poop

The Ask a House Cleaner Show and Podcast with Angela Brown

Here are 5 lies you've been told about Dog poop. Many pet owners get dogs because they are cute but they don't have poop scoop plan.

Here are 5 lies you’ve been told about Dog poop. Many pet owners get dogs because they are cute and don’t have poop and scoop plan.

Many assume the house cleaner or maid will clean up the fecal matter as part of the house cleaning. But there are lots of hazmat, fertilizer, toxic waste, parasites misunderstandings about dog poop.

Is dog poop harmless? Can dog poop make you sick? Is dog poop toxic? And what do you do if the cleaning lady doesn’t clean up dog poop?

Listen: 5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Dog Poop

Watch: 5 Lies You’ve Been Told About Dog Poop

Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.

Lies You’ve Been Told About Dog Poop

There are five lies that you may have heard about dog poop.

Let’s go over them so you can recognize them when they show up in conversations with customers.

It’s Just Dog Poop – It’s Harmless

The first lie comes from homeowners and they say, “It’s just dog poop. It’s organic, it’s harmless.” All right, dog poop can be harmful to humans. In 1991 the environmental protection agency said that dog poop is a hazard.

It is a toxic chemical. And they linked it right up there with herbicides and pesticides and grease and oil and toxic chemicals.

Dog Poop is Great Fertilizer for My Yard

The second lie is that, oh, dog poop is a great fertilizer for my yard. No, it doesn’t make a good fertilizer. It will discolor your yard and it will burn your grass.

And also, dog poop is the number one carrier for tapeworms, hookworms, roundworms, and whipworms.

And then once a dog poops in your yard, the worm eggs in the poop can hatch and stay inside the soil for years.

When your kids go outside and they play in the yard or they’re walking barefoot and they can pick up the eggs. Those worm eggs get transferred to their body.

And so also your animals can re pick up those roundworms and tapeworms and ringworm and then bring those in.

Especially if they’re up outside and they’re licking up like rainwater.

Dog Poop Can’t Make Me Sick

Dog poop can make you sick and the worms the poop carries can make your pet sick. They can also carry diseases.

Playing out in your yard, touching grass either with your hands or bare feet leaves you open to worm eggs and parasites.

They can embed themselves under your fingernails. (This is another reason we wear gloves when gardening.)

Once infected you become a carrier.

And the side effects range from headaches to nauseousness. You can vomit have diarrhea and even kidney failure.

Dog poop can make you sick.

I’m Happy to Clean Up Your Dog Poop

That takes us to lie number four. This is a lie that comes from house cleaners and house cleaners will tell a homeowner, “Oh, I’m happy to clean up your dog poop.”

House cleaners tell this to homeowners because they want to provide excellent customer service. As a house cleaner, it’s important to have a “can-do” attitude.

But house cleaners are never happy to clean up dog poop. The task excites no one.

On the walkthrough, if your company doesn’t clean up dog poop – this is where you have a conversation with the client.

“Our company has a policy against cleaning up pet wastes (dog poop, and cat litter.) Please clean it up before we arrive to clean.”

Biodegradable Bags Are Flushable

Many people walk their dog and they flush biodegradable bags. They’re flushable, right? No, they’re not. They’re biodegradable.

What that means is you can throw them in a landfill and the bags will disintegrate over time. They are not flushable. When you flush them in the sewer system, it clogs the toilet systems and that causes your toilets to back up.

Once your toilets back up, then they overflow.

If you arrive to clean a house and the toilets have backed up using a plunger first to try to clear the blockage.

If the toilet is still blocked call your boss and ask them what they want you to do. They may tell you to take a picture and text the customer or to leave it. They may instruct you to use a snake pipe that your company has trained you to use.

* Every company handles clogged toilets in their own way.

Now the EPA – (Environmental Protection Agency) and the CDC (Center for Disease Control) claim the safest place to dispose of dog poop is to flush it without the bag.

Flush it without the bag all by itself. Just dog poop down the toilet is fine, but no bag.