Attic insulation moved around for wiring—can I just rake it back?

Raking it back into place will help with coverage, but you're right to worry about the R-value. Once loose-fill insulation—especally that white fiberglass fluff—has been trampled or shoved into heaps, it loses the air pockets that do the actual insulating. You can try to fluff it back up with a rake or even a leaf blower on a low setting, but you'll likely find that it just doesn't have the same volume it used to.

If you're seeing bare joists, you're losing a ton of heat in the winter and gaining way too much in a North Carolina summer. The most effective move is to just top it off. While you mentioned wanting to avoid a blow-in job, it's acutally a lot less back-breaking than hauling individual batts up into a cramped attic. If you buy a certain number of bags from a big-box store, they usually let you use the blower machine for free. Cellulose is generally better than fiberglass for topping off beacuse it's denser and handles air infiltration better. If you're dead set on using batts, make sure you buy **unfaced batts**. If you use the ones with the paper backing (vapor barrier), you'll trap moisture between the layers of insulation, wich leads to mold issues in a humid climate like yours. Just lay them perpendicular to the joists to cover the gaps. But the reality is it's hard to get a perfect seal with batts over an uneven mess of loose-fill.

Since the house was built in 2014, the **air sealing** at the drywall plane should be okay, but it's never perfect. Since the insulation is alredy moved around, take twenty minutes with a can of spray foam and hit any wire penetrations or light boxes you see. It makes a massive difference in how well the insulation actually performs. You're looking for about 15 to 18 inches of total depth to hit modern standards for your area.

That leaf blower trick sounds like a dust nightmare, honestly. Does it actualy work without making the whole house a mess? I'm in a similar spot with a 2012 build and I'm worried about the soffit vents. If I start raking everythign back or adding more, do I need to install those cardboard baffle things first? I've heard if you bury the vents with insulation it can mess up the roof or cause moisture issues, wich sounds way worse than just having a high power bill.

Since those security wires are a mess, I’d pin them up to the rafters or the sides of the joists before you level anything. If you leave them buried, you'll just trip over them or snag one if you ever need to fix a camera later.

Also, staple a few cheap yardsticks to the joists as depth markers. It’s way easier to see where the low spots are when you have a visual guide. If you're going to be up there anyway, consider adding a simple OSB walkway for future maintenace. It stops you from crushing the insulation every time you need to check a wire.