I'm not trying to outdo OWJ's smell thread here but I need some help.

It seems that a mouse (or other furry critter has TRAVELED into my house and died. From the smell you would think I had the rotting carcass of a buffalo and it is making me ill.

Doe anyone have any ideas beyond opening my windows for eliminating the stench? I realize that this could not be further off topic but in the past, Fodorites from all corners of the world have helped others with problems (albeit minor in the scheme of things) like thhis one.

Thanks in advance. Eva

Yuck! I assume you removed the dead creature First, I would disinfect the area (did it die on a carpet or hardwood?). Next, I would open the windows for as long as possible. Finally, I would use something like Fabreeze (which is safe for fabric).

Good luck getting rid of this problem!

You won't be able to get rid of the smell unless you get rid of the creature. So, if you haven't found it, that's the first step. Unfortunately, they seem to like dying in walls and ceilings. :-&

Once you've gotten rid of it, cleaning the area is good, but definitely place a bowl of activated charcoal in the area to absorb odors. I'm not personally a fan of the chemical nature of febreeze, but charcoal is a great odor absorber.

Try mothballs--that's what my pest control company advised me to do when my husband mistakenly put a bag of garbage up in the attic while putting away Christmas decorations one year. Rats then decided to dine in our attic;we tried unsuccessfully to trap them and finally had to resort to some type of poison. Fortunately, attics in Florida are hot so by the time the mothball smell was gone (a few days) so was the smell from the dead rat(s).

And FWIW the odor will abate after a bit as the carcass dessicates.

That is one of the very good reasons to NOT use poison as a means of pest removal. They eat it and then go behind the walls and die.

Baking soda works too, but not immediately. It takes persistence.

Since you say "mouse or other furry . . . " I figure you haven't found it yet. If you can't track it down and get rid of it, then time and ventilation are the only sure things.

Mothballs will compete or mask the smell, but won't really do anything to absorb or eliminate it. You might as well use something that smells good, like a cotton ball with vanilla.

Some types of air fresheners actually absorb smells, rather than covering them up or deadening your nose; I would look into these, I think Lysol makes one.

Ugh, good luck!

We moved into our house about 8 years ago and it had laid empty for about 5 months prior.
We had this awful smell, (which I thought was sewage)upstairs in our kids bathroom. I had all kinds of people come in and no one knew what it was. I had this country fellow come in from a plumbing company and he stated very matter of factly, that I had dead varmint in my wall. If I would let him cut a hole in the wall, he could remove it. He actually cut a hole in the closet behind the bath sinks. There it was. He removed the creature and therefore the smell! I couldn't believe that someone could pinpoint the dead mouse so exactly, but I guess he has smelled that smell before!
I hope you can find your plumber from the country who can smell out your dead varmint!LOL

the cure for dead animals in the walls of old homes is the same as that for a hangover: time, only time.

girlonthego,
Hey! I thought I was the only one who had that experience! We had three plumbers and the video camera in the plumbing all of which was expensive and none of which could find the problem until plumber #4 said "dead animal."

Just remember folks, you need to find out where they furry creatures are getting in your house in order to fix the problem.

This reminds me of what used to happen about 10 years ago when the clinic I worked in was housed in a building that was over 100 years old. We used to get mice running around from time to time, and the maintenance people would put out poison. They kept telling us that the poison would dehydrate and eventually dessicate the corpses so that there wouldn't be any smell.

Usually the poor little critters would go up behind the acoustic tile in the ceiling to die. The odor was unbelieveable. We would then call maintenance and ask them to remove the dead mouse, and what inevitably followed was a huge argument while they insisted that the poison they used ensured that there would be no smell and therefore something else must be causing the odor. They would try to blame us for keeping food in our offices - which of course we didn't do because of the mice. Eventually when we had bugged them long enough and often enough, they would grudgingly come over and remove a couple of the ceiling tiles in the offending office and remove a mouse corpse. They would strenuously insist that the corpse had NOTHING to do with the smell. Of course the smell would disappear as soon as they had done that.

I think your only solution is to find the body and dispose of it!

Are you sure its a dead animal? For weeks, I thought I had a dead animal in our kitchen walls somewhere. As time went by, the smell got worse and worse. Pulled everything out of our cabinets - nothing. Believe it or not, I eventually tracked it down to our old refrigerator. Guess each time it defrosted, some of the water managed to drain down onto the bottom pan and it slowly grew all moldy and totally disgusting. Whipped that puppy out and gave it a good cleaning and ahhh, no more smell.

If you have had a power failure and some meat, like chicken, had defrosted enough to have some of the defrosted juices dribble into the refrigerator, you will have the problem that cruisin_tigger describes. The solution for this is to take everything out of the refrigerator and even to unscrew/remove some of the panels in the freezer/refrigerator and wipe away the stinky juice.

If it is a critter in the walls, remember that it is WATER that critters need, so if the smell is greatest around the tub, dig in the wall there, if the toilet, dig in the wall there.

Mice can enter anywhere there is a hole the size of a quarter. They also like warmth, so look to see in other possible areas, e.g., if the wires and the flue above the stove have wide open holes providing a highway of entry into your house. Seal all such entries with expanding foam.

Good luck! Remember we share this earth with a lot of other critters!

Whatever the dead animal is, I would strongly recommend that you simply write a check for somebody else (a professional) to remove the animal. Many animals harbor diseases and their feces may contain a deadly bacteria.

Research hantavirus. Or, don't.

Good luck.

If you can localize the source of the smell, all the better. I had a dead rat behind my built-in oven, which fortunately I could slide out. The stench was bad, and of course first I cleaned and cleaned, with bleach, and orange-oil cleaner, and baking soda, etc. But I swear the odor had seeped into the wood. Eventually I switched to "alternative" methods, which helps a lot.

Activated charcoal is good, and/or along the same lines, a bunch of burnt toast. Burning the toast will help the air in your house as well.

Something I learned from a FA: coffee grounds! Sprinkled nearly a whole lb. of it back there, and that finally did the trick. I swept it up after about a week, but meanwhile, it added to the cozy smell of the kitchen (along with the burnt toast!)! ;-)

....and died so now my house smells fried....

We thought we had a dead critter also, but it turned out it was a live rat. Once we trapped and relocated it (no poison here!) bleach and water solution took most of the smell away. But a live one's leavings can smell every bit as bad as a dead one.

Thanks for the suggestions folks. Unfortunately like getting dark earlier, this happens every fall. The mice from the giant firlds behind my house get chilly as the air turns colder and they seek refuge within and die,

I have done the baking powder in the past but will try the charcoal this time. The stench in the basement last night was so powerful I could not even begin to try to locate the source. I guess I have to go in (but could use one of those surgical masks...

I know time will take care of it (just like a hangover--LOL Monadnock) and unfortunately the husband is only here every other weekend (and this is not that weekend). So I guess I must go in search of Mickey...

To GoT, I thought about making it a seussical rhyme, but the smell is really too disgusting this time.

And Marilyn, no offense but yours is my least favorite reply. If I remember correctly you live in the Bay Area---if you hear a scream that has traveled across the country from Massachusetts, you'll know that I located a RAT! Aaaaah!! Eva

Yeah, I know Eeva. We live in the woods as well, and so do the rats. We never had a problem until our local racoon population suffered a crash. Now the rodents have proliferated.