Smell of death :(

lostinrates

Help.

Does any one else know this smell?

Its the smell that, for exams, occurs when cats have left something under the sofa and its started to decompose. This is fine when its a mouse under a sofa.....furniture can be moved......a friend had a dead rabbit under a unremovable vent in her house....it was awful.


Once smelt never forgotten, for those lucky people who haven't I can only try and describe it. Its quite gassy, noxious, a bit irony, it gets stronger and stronger until the source is either found or.........um.....otherwise got rid of. The smell gets so bad one gets tears rolling down the face. Its like nothing else. This dry smell of death.



I live in an old house in the country side undergoing renovation. This morning in one of the nicer bits ( upstairs corridor and dressing room) I smelt the smell of death. :mad: I turned lights on and looked but could see nothing. This area is clear and sealed , no gaps around skirting, no holes in walls.

There is a void below this space where something could be but I can opt get in there til DH comes home at the weekend, and the attic is above.

Within an hour it had spread, or I'd found it in another bit of corridor, where there is hole in ceiling....but I had to go out...and I couldn't see anything there anyway.

I left the front door open all day to try and at least air the house.


I think it could be something in the attic or this void, but I have no way of getting to it for another few days. ( I literally cannot get up a ladder to look).

Any tips to cope until then? . Its now inal
Upstairs corridors and the back section of the house.

chinagirl

_pale_Ewwwww ........ no hints or tips, but ewwww all the same !
Hope you get to the bottom of it though_pale_

fannyadams

febreze ?

lostinrates

fannyadams wrote: »

febreze ?

Smell of death Stamps on febreze , candles or bicarbonate unless I just need to use more? We have no soft furnishings in that area, just clothes in the dressing room, and the floors are newly varnished wood, the walls unfinished plaster.


Weirdly, IME (sad but true that I have experience of this) when the source is found and removed the smell goes immediately and doesn't linger in fabrics or anything.

Bennifred

Many years ago in the wilds of Austalia my father shot and killed a wild boar which was becoming a nuisance around the homestead, and dumped it a mile or so away. The smell! My siblings and I still talk about that stench forty years later:o

lostinrates

Bennifred wrote: »

Many years ago in the wilds of Austalia my father shot and killed a wild boar which was becoming a nuisance around the homestead, and dumped it a mile or so away. The smell! My siblings and I still talk about that stench forty years later:o

You know it.

That acrid smell that makes the hairs in your nose curl up and wither, the feeling that if you in hale then what ever is decomposing that dead thing might get you from the lungs and you'll rot simply from inhaling the smell. :eek:




This is more likely to be a small mouse in a wall, or a void some where or possibly a dead bat in the attic.

calicocat

I know the smell.

Is there a friend who could come over to do a bit of investigating for you as hubby not there.......now could be the time you called in the favour of walking 10 dogs at a time ( if that is an option of course).

Is it an area where an animal could be in a wall or underneath flooring etc?...as in trapped and dead?...there may be no visible holes in walls or boards...but that doesn't mean much in an old place as it could be leaking from somewhere not visible?.

An old place I used to live in me ans ex renovated....to find blood soaked walls and floors in parts of the house that YEARS ago had been used to kill and hang meat.

Broomstick

It's horrible. We had experience of a large-ish mammal getting trapped and dying under a council owned building we used to use. The building was taken out of action until it was sorted.

If you can't identify and deal with it tonight, I wonder if there is any way you could ring Environmental Services in the morning and ask for their advice/help and explain that your DH won't be around until the weekend.

B x

lostinrates

calicocat wrote: »

I know the smell.

Is there a friend who could come over to do a bit of investigating for you as hubby not there.......now could be the time you called in the favour of walking 10 dogs at a time ( if that is an option of course).crufts week she's out. I've had a good prowl everywhere safe to prowl. The spaces left are a four foot ,void (and area of the house we call the secret dwarf room) and the attic, but as you say, could be floors between joists , or in walls or anything. All I know is it started in that corridor. [COLOR="rgb(139, 0, 0)"] [/COLOR]

Is it an area where an animal could be in a wall or underneath flooring etc?...as in trapped and dead?...there may be no visible holes in walls or boards...but that doesn't mean much in an old place as it could be leaking from somewhere not visible?.

An old place I used to live in me ans ex renovated....to find blood soaked walls and floors in parts of the house that YEARS ago had been used to kill and hang meat.

We have hooks against the walls of one of our rooms, in which there is a smoker. I would have thought hooks would be along beams so that meat hung suspended away from walls so as air could circulate so this has always confused me but now what you have said this its got me thinking again.



(Smell on other side of house fwiw:D)

peachyprice

Oh I know that smell, it's inevitable with 5 cats and fields nearby. It's one of those smells that once it's in your nose it just sticks.

I remember once that it came, I lived through it, it went, it wasn't until quite some months later that I found the dehydrated mouse behind a desk in the dining room.

I hope you find it soon, otherwise it's going to take a long time to go in this cool weather.

lostinrates

peachyprice wrote: »

I hope you find it soon, otherwise it's going to take a long time to go in this cool weather.

With no heating in the house too.......


Once the thing is 'dry' as you say...smell goes......

But ......I only started smelling it this morning.