Posted on 08/12/2010 7:04:14 PM PDT by txroadkill
Need Freeper advice! Just got home from vacation and have discovered a horrible odor in the house. I’ve tracked it down to one of the center walls and I’m guessing that either a mouse or a squirrel died between the walls. It’s a two story house so short of tearing down the dry wall I have no idea how to handle this. It stinks bad and is made worse by the 105 degree Texas heat. Any advice would be greatly appreciated; I don’t even know who you would call for something like this!
It sounds as though you are convinced the odor is coming from inside the wall. That being the case you have no option but to pinpoint the odor and tear open the wall.
Strange situation, but I’m sure exterminators have had to deal with this before. Call a few.
You can’t find a point-of-entry? If you could, you may be able to narrow down the part of the wall between studs that you’ll need to demolish. I don’t know how you’d get it out with pulling the wall down.
Had this happen frequently in a 150-year-old home I owned (had hollow walls). The way to deal with the odor? Grin and bear it. Will only last a couple of days. In the meantime, try Febreeze. Seriously.
As an add-on to south-40’s, did you check other places, like the chimney, the bathroom exhaust pipe, the furnace exhaust, the attic, any place where a squirrel could have climbed in?
See #4. That’s the answer unless you want to start ripping out walls.
Think you’re going to have to open it up. You could try small test hole to try and locate exact location before making big hole to get it out. But time is urgent cause if you can smell it it is decomposing and as it liquifies it will soak into drywall and lumber. That is bad news.
I agree with Ghost of Philip Marlowe.
A pest control guy will know where to look.
it’s not that bad to patch drywall, if it’s simple drywall
Incense to cover it up, it will go away in a week in hot weather if it’s a dead rodent.
You didn’t recently divorce I assume?
You mentioned you got back from vacation, were the teenagers left at home?
Rent, borrow or beg a good corpse-sniffing dog.
We just removed a dead mouse from the AC drain line. We have no idea how it got there, and could have been there since the AC was installed 2 years ago. It caused a little flood.
See if you can rent a thermal camera like they use to detect drafts, you may be able to see specifically where the corpse is. You will have to tear out the drywall obviously, probably a whole section if the smell is attached. Spray everything down with bleach before replacing the drywall.
Nothing you can do but either bear it and hope it goes away as the critter dries out, or start demolishing drywall.
Sorry.
We had that happen once. A stupid mouse died in the wall. We couldn’t get to it so we sealed off as many leaks in the wall through which the smell would seep and just bore it for a while. Just don’t go in that room too much and you will be ok. :)
That aint gonna work. The thing has assumed room temperature.
Yeah I checked every thing. the smell is strongest in the wall between the living room and den. I betting it’s a squirrel, I found out that it rained pretty bad last week and all of the clocks were flashing when we got home so I’m betting that it probably can in trough one of the attic fans while the power was off and either fell or gave birth and the babies died.
the odor will go away...just like BP's oil spill...let nature take its course.
The act of decomposition may generate a heat difference, it is a chemical reaction.
It won’t be as warm as a live animal, but it will be a different temperature than the surrounding walls.
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