Smell of death :(

calicocat

Don't know if this is true or not, but could imagine it is....you apparently only need a tiny tiny hole for mice to move around a home... the circumference of a pencil I read, as long as they can get their heads through (and I think their skulls can 'move')they can dislocate all their limbs to get to where they want to be.
Absolutely no idea where I got that from memory wise and hope I haven't dreamt it as it does sound strange.

However one mouse couldn't produce that smell..?...although I did make a whole class full of 7 year old kids i'll by keeping a dead mole in my desk for a couple of weeks for a science project thinking back.

I would...shut all doors, and try to isolate room or area first to ascertain where it may be coming from.

Edit...also if you are talking dressing area i'm assuming it's upstairs? My uncle had lived in his farm house for 19 yrs before they discovered a secret chapel and a whole new staircase. How old is your property? I'm guessing pretty old, but would there be any secret rooms etc?

Bathory

I hope you find the cause soon, was going to suggest strong scented candles or joss sticks but not sure if that would work. I know the smell, its like a rotting meat/methane kind of stench. Years ago when I lived out in the sticks that smell sometimes hung around the nearby gamekeepers quarters who kept foxhounds and I never to this day forgot it.

My ex father in law worked as an undertaker for a good 20 years and at times it could get pretty bad, he seemed oblivious to it though.

lostinrates

calicocat wrote: »

Don't know if this is true or not, but could imagine it is....you apparently only need a tiny tiny hole for mice to move around a home... the circumference of a pencil I read, as long as they can get their heads through (and I think their skulls can 'move')they can dislocate all their limbs to get to where they want to be.
Absolutely no idea where I got that from memory wise and hope I haven't dreamt it as it does sound strange.

However one mouse couldn't produce that smell..?...although I did make a whole class full of 7 year old kids i'll by keeping a dead mole in my desk for a couple of weeks for a science project thinking back.

I would...shut all doors, and try to isolate room or area first to ascertain where it may be coming from.

Edit...also if you are talking dressing area i'm assuming it's upstairs? My uncle had lived in his farm house for 19 yrs before they discovered a secret chapel and a whole new staircase. How old is your property? I'm guessing pretty old, but would there be any secret rooms etc?

One tiny mouse can produce a terrible smell. (We shut up a room for a few days while dashing in to move furniture between running out for air while looking I'm sad to say I know a hedgehog can almost enforce evacuation.

Apart from the secret dwarf room we have a metre squre bit missing (I mean, its there, we just don't know what it was.....the son of the people who lived here before told us all his bad school reports are in there because he used to chuck them down there.

The cellars were filled in sometime about twenty five/thirty years ago, and we have a nother but that's there but just appears to be an odd, solid wall.

Noting that impacts on the smell though.


The difficulty with shutting this area up is there are no doors between this corridor and down stairs at the front at all. Its also pretty hard to close it off, as this is an odd 'done' section in among areas which very much are not, doors don 't meet etc.


Oh dear

Callie22

A few years ago 'something' got under the floorboards and died in my gran's flat. The smell was awful and my mum mentioned it to the local pest control officer. He came round and sprayed some kind of aerosol spray under the floorboards and it got rid of the smell. He said it was something that they used a lot in properties with rodent infestations where things died in inaccessible places - I can't remember what it was called but if it gets really bad then it might be worth calling a local pest control company to see if they can tell you what to use?

whitesatin

When I was teaching, I could smell something awful in my stock cupboard. I kept saying that it smelled like something had died in there. Eventually someone found a dead mouse stuck to the radiator. Once it was removed the smell went away but I still remember it.

My daughter had the same smell in her utility room and we could not track it down. In the end, the pest people came and found that a family of mice had made a nest in the grill bits at the back of her fridge, nice and cosy and warm, I suppose. The surprise was that the utility room is also occupied by two cats who seemed oblivious. Again, the smell went away as soon as the nest with dead mice was removed.

I wish you luck in finding whatever it is, thinking about that smell still makes me feel ill.

lostinrates

Callie22 wrote: »

A few years ago 'something' got under the floorboards and died in my gran's flat. The smell was awful and my mum mentioned it to the local pest control officer. He came round and sprayed some kind of aerosol spray under the floorboards and it got rid of the smell. He said it was something that they used a lot in properties with rodent infestations where things died in inaccessible places - I can't remember what it was called but if it gets really bad then it might be worth calling a local pest control company to see if they can tell you what to use?

Wow, a product exists?


I will certainly be doing this! Thank you.



( the shame of being outed as a property that might need this services :rotfl:)

calicocat

lostinrates wrote: »

One tiny mouse can produce a terrible smell. (We shut up a room for a few days while dashing in to move furniture between running out for air while looking I'm sad to say I know a hedgehog can almost enforce evacuation.

Apart from the secret dwarf room we have a metre squre bit missing (I mean, its there, we just don't know what it was.....the son of the people who lived here before told us all his bad school reports are in there because he used to chuck them down there.

The cellars were filled in sometime about twenty five/thirty years ago, and we have a nother but that's there but just appears to be an odd, solid wall.

Noting that impacts on the smell though.


The difficulty with shutting this area up is there are no doors between this corridor and down stairs at the front at all. Its also pretty hard to close it off, as this is an odd 'done' section in among areas which very much are not, doors don 't meet etc.


Oh dear

Aside from the smell...your house again sounds lovely.

Where does the dwarf room go to and from...pure nosiness now?...and the bit missing but not missing?.

We need floor plans.


My cousin apparently (before my time initially as young) hated her bedroom and could not sleep for years. Eventually she had a 'dream' that told her to walk through her wardrobe (built in cupboard from donkeys ago, not sure what era, and that went to an outside stone wall so couldn't be walked through)....thats where they ended up finding the chapel and secret staircase.

lostinrates

calicocat wrote: »

Aside from the smell...your house again sounds lovely.

Where does the dwarf room go to and from...pure nosiness now?...and the bit missing but not missing?.

We need floor plans.


My cousin apparently (before my time initially as young) hated her bedroom and could not sleep for years. Eventually she had a 'dream' that told her to walk through her wardrobe (built in cupboard from donkeys ago, not sure what era, and that went to an outside stone wall so couldn't be walked through)....thats where they ended up finding the chapel and secret staircase.

Your cousins house sounds far more exciting.

The secret dwarf rooms as once almost certainly an old hay loft. At the hugest and most romantic stretch of imagination it may have become secret at about the time if the dissolution. The exact age of our house is unclear, but the site has always been important. The listing has been done very clumsily and its listed as Georgian. My DH (who read arch and anth) and the architect get quite excited about some things. For example, I am sitting in the Gerogian sitting room now while I type , but the Georgian window is not original look at the front you can see its been put into the front and other window holes were there. The sitting room has a very un Georgian and ungracious clumsy inglenook fireplace. Its like a cut and shut house. As it wS done up over the years obviously they did a lazy modernisation at each stage.

The secret drawn room is above the room behind this room. We found it buy chance too, a missing door, that seems exterior, but would be half way throught the 'Georgian' bit.

We think the secret dwarf room under room is the oldest bit of the house with other bits added in front and either side and so on as years went on.

arbroath_lass

Would Vicks Vaporub under your nostrils help until you can find the culprit?

Spendless

Only once and it was a dead mouse. We could identify where the smell was stronger but couldn't work out exact location. Until we pulled the fridge out and it had crawled on to a ledge by the fan of the fridge and died there. We'd had poison down for it and when I spoke to pest controller, he said the poison lowered the body temperature so mouse went looking for somewhere warm to lie. I'd check any sources of heat you have and look around there.