| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Lisa_P |
Posted - Feb 21 2013 : 4:22:54 PM
About a week ago, we noticed a stink coming from our girls room. Her closet also has the hatch to the crawl space. It smelled like mouse nest. If you have smelled one, you know it's unmistakable. We have moved her out of there for now. We had someone come out and run a camera through the vents and heating ducts to make sure there were no dead things or mice living in there. Nope. His best estimation is that something (mouse) died under the house in between the floor and the insulation in the crawl space. I've been down there, and it's near impossible to find the nest or dead thing making the stink. I asked him what I could do. He said to wait for it to stop stinking! Not. Gonna. Happen. This ain't gonna fly round here girls. It just ain't. Do any of you have suggestions to cut the stink? It's localized but when you shut off one room, it wafts to another via holes in the ducts or vents. There's just air seepage. Nothing I can do about that. I've tried spraying air fresheners, but that just makes the stink sweet.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Signed,
"The great stink battler" |
| 5 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lisa_P |
Posted - Mar 08 2013 : 09:22:04 AM
Thanks for support ladies. :) The smell seems to have gone. We have since found that there are gaps and holes in the ducting under the house. When the furnace is on, the hot air leaks into the crawlspace. Then that mixes with the stink of the crawlspace (and any mice nests/dead rodents), and seeps into the house via holes in the walls i.e. cracks around light switches, gaps in the space where heating ducts connect to the wall, gaps around pipes, etc. I could walk up to a light switch and feel air seeping out, and smell the stink coming with it. Eventually, the landlord will need to get down there and fix all of that. For now, we've noticed by not continually running the furnace the smell hasn't come back. I use the fireplace, and keep the temp down a bit. When this all started, we had a really cold spell, and the furnace was working overtime. We also realized that the furnace was staying on for too long. It was taking forever to reach it's target temp. This is what prompted my hubs to crawl under there, and remove insulation from some of the ducting where he then found the holes/gaps. He actually fixed a lot of it, but there were whole sections he couldn't get to, because there was no room to move around. Hopefully, it can be fixed. I thank the Lord for such a Handy hard working Hubs! ;) |
| Dorinda |
Posted - Feb 24 2013 : 10:25:20 AM
Lisa That has happened here a couple of times. You just have to ride it out basically. We had it happen with a mouse and a large black snake. I saw the snake crawl in a small hole in between our brick and wall. Our house is fully brick all the way around. Then there is plywood behind the brick. I sat and waited for hours for that dang snake to come back out of that hole and it never did. About a week later we had the most terrible smell coming from that side of the house. I think the snake crawled up in there and died. It lasted about a week or so. Then years later we had hurricane Charlie come through and tore our roof off. We had to replace the roof and a lot of damage. But the garage ceiling had a hole in it that was there for a while before we got to it. The insurance did not pay for that part. So we had to wait a while and then get it fixed. In the mean time of course a mouse family moved into the attic. Long story short when we fixed the hole the mouse died up there some where. We had not thought about that. Boy did it start smelling . My husband crawled around up there and found a couple of dead rats. But it still took a while even after removing the dead rats for the smell to go away. We just had to wait it out.
Seize The Day!
Dorinda |
| Ninibini |
Posted - Feb 24 2013 : 09:19:07 AM
Oh, Lisa - I feel for you! I wish I had an answer, but I don't. MANY years ago, we had a landlord that killed rodents with a chemical that they would digest before dying a slow death. One time, he got something, and it died in our walls. There was NOTHING that took that smell away. It was so nasty. It did eventually go away, but dang was it gross! The other thing I really worried about was bugs and bacteria and disease that would result from the rotting carcass; but the landlord couldn't locate the source, and he surely wasn't about to knock down a wall to get to it. I was so grossed out that we moved as soon as we could - I wasn't about to live with that on an ongoing basis! Ewww yuck! I hope you are able to find a solution that works for you - and I pray that the smell and the "whole process" is over very quickly! - Nini
Farmgirl Sister #1974
God gave us two hands... one to help ourselves, and one to help others!
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| ddmashayekhi |
Posted - Feb 22 2013 : 06:19:00 AM
We buy fragrance free room deodorizes from Home Depot (probably available at any hardware store). Throw several of them in the room and see if that helps. Give it a few days to absorb the odor.
I hope this or something else works very quickly for you.
Dawn in IL |
| LeighErica |
Posted - Feb 21 2013 : 6:49:54 PM
I would suggest to open a window and just air out the areas affected but I see you live in Oregon, so it may be too cold to do that. Burn a candle .... or as the tech said...wait for it to dissipate. It will eventually go away, but I understand your concern and frustration. We had a mouse build a nest in our daughters neon..that was being stored in our shed. One day I went to drive it, and turned on the heater...where the nest and mouse was...and he got chopped all up and messed up the heater. So, I took the car to the garage so they could fix it. They were so upset...they had to open all the bay doors because when they took the dash apart it smelled up the entire garage....lol...I of course laughed until I almost peed my pants....so I do know stinky. Best of luck...Erica
Farm Girl #2731 |
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