Unfortunately normal. If you are concerned see if your (landlord?) will pay for or split the cost of a duct cleaning. You say inside the walls but I assume you mean inside ducts?

How exactly would you ”claim” that this impacts your ”air quality” if its inside the wall? I think that this is an extreme reach, and you are overreacting.

Very common to find debris left in walls... don't worry about it.

In 1990 we bought a new build spec home built by a higher end builder in a small neighborhood of like homes & priced accordingly. Fast forward 12 years & we were changing out finishes in master bath. When they lifted out the big soaking tub from its tiled surround, we were aghast to find crumpled up fast food wrappers, cups etc. Apparently the tub box made a great trash can & the folks who dropped the tub in decided it wasn’t their job to clean up after the others. We were happy no food seemed to be left in the wrappers . We never tore any walls down so hoped they were clean. My point is, this sloppiness has been going on for a long time - there’s one slob in every bunch! When our current home was being built, I had a broom & trash bag with me at every visit & used them.

Common to find patches of buried scrap building material - in two different homes they were near the front door. Seems it was easy to toss scrap wood, scrap sheet-rock, etc, out the door and into a hole, ultimately to be buried!

Ironically Garbage men are left out of contractual obligations loop too.

Maybe our resident builder Mr. Charles Ross can explain why builders can't be bothered to clean up after themselves?

Can't contain myself while waiting for the smoke blowing to begin. LOL

We had a 1905 house and when we reoved all the old plaster and layers of waal board there was all kinds of stuff in the walls but not really garbage. Report cards from the 1920s when they redid the attic for living space , old cocacola posters for layer between the flooring in the attic and the joists , it was kind of fun to find all kinds of stuff. As for air quality I guess it would depend on what is in there since the walls are closed is this just stuff in the vents or have you actually ripped out a wal and found stuff in there .I would think if the stuff is from 1973 that probablt is the time the unit was built.As for what to do , I guess talk to your landlord there is no way for us to help.

Austin Air Person

Why would you launch another personal attack from your Texas base?

You again contributed nothing and have soured yet another thread.

Reported!

Texas calls.

On a related point, new construction "best practise" (!) is to put much of the wood debris into the front door stoop and then concrete over it. Great breeding ground for termites (ask me how I know).

If you're having a new home built, watch out for this one!

If I was the landlord I'd tell you to pound sand, so get on the bad side when it's time to raise rent. It's common and even to this day when I'm cutting a hole in a wall I throw all the garbage down the wall. Cheeto's puffs, candy wrappers, empty beer cans, you name it and down the hole she goes, but she wouldn't fit.

Older homes around here were insulated with newspapers. Yes, builder rather despose of building materials under a layer of dirt in new homeowners lawns than pay for the removal.

The vast majority of "house dust" is the shed epidermis of Homo sapiens (perhaps with Felix domesticus and Canis familaris, if they hapen to live with you). AKA human skin, and cat and dog dander if you have them. Ancient junk in the walls is inert and not contributing to the problem. I rather enjoy finding the traces of those who went before when remodeling, but I'm weird. I occasionally leave time capsules, but not trash.

Old newspapers and such can be a godsend when trying to date and research an old machine or piece of furniture.

If you are talking dirty ducts ask to get them cleaned. This should be a regular maintenance issue anyways.

Austin Air Person

Why would you launch another personal attack from your Texas base?

You again contributed nothing and have soured yet another thread.

Reported!

Texas calls.

LOL. I launched the attack? I was asking a humorous question. Yeah I had a hand in starting this post? Laughing is now against the law? where do you live? In Texas we are still free. People are flocking here in droves. People laugh here. Sarcasm is also allowed here as well. Let freedom ring in 2022.

Happy New Year, Stax.