Rattus Rattus

[Glint]

If it’s not near the house, I’d ignored. We had a tiny mouse that used our patio as a path, we would only see it going one way, presume a cat has had it by now.

[H1ppychick]

I seem to have a spate of cluster flies, they’ve appeared for the past couple of days and I’ve had to usher them out of the windows. According to the inter webs, likeliest cause is a dead animal or bird in a void somewhere, they should last for maybe a couple of weeks. So it seems like we did for Mr Rat but he’s festering somewhere in the construction. No smell, though.

[overthehill]

Unusually for him, Foggy presented us with a small, but severely dented, and very dead, rat the other day. He usually eats everything he catches, but I think his eyes were bigger than his stomach on this occasion.

[Beena]

We move in 5 days, something has died somewhere in the house and I can't find it's rotten stinking corpse. I was convinced it was lurking behind a false wall we build to hide the pipework under the stairs, but I took a hammer to that at 5am when the stench got too much and it's not there. There's a fairly decent chance it's in the void under the bottom two stairs. Or under the living room floorboards.

The smell is rancid. I woke up retching. Every window and door is wide open and might just have to stay that way forever. FFS.

I think the smell started last week and was definitely noticeable by the weekend, in a whiff of cabbage way. This must be peak stink. Must be.

What do I do? Pray it's sufficiently rotted by the time the new owners arrive? Leave them a jar of Vicks Vapour Rub as a housewarming gift?

[Princess Morripov]

I’d ring a pest control firm and get them round.

[Beena]

Fuck. I'd convinced myself that it was a rogue one the cat has brought in to torment and lost. She has form for that. Usually she catches them or J does before they die under their own steam. Neither are here right now.

An infestation would just put the shiny top hat on everything.

[Ruby]

Pest control companies will absolutely not chase down and find a dead one. I know this from direct experience.

Also, don't start knocking into voids etc. because there's no way of knowing where it actually is. The only thing you can really do is just ignore it.

[Estrella]

I potentially posted on this thread previously, but a friend had a possum die in her wall cavity (so way bigger than a mouse) and the pest guy she got in wouldn’t do anything and told her to close the door and leave it and the smell would pass eventually (once all the moisture was gone from the corpse).

[Ruby]

If you follow the timeline on this thread, you'll see it took about 3-4 weeks for the rat corpse to completely decompose.

[Derek Nimmo]

Yep, as Ruby said a pest control company will not be able to help at this point.

In my rodent-ridden days I used this - sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but its a hell of a lot more effective than a scented candle. And far cheaper than a pest control call out only for them to tell you they can't do anything.

ETA Oh, I see I gave the same advice on the first page of this thread

[Beena]

Thanks. I don't really have any other option, other than ignore it, but Christ I feel guilty. In a mad moment I thought about putting off the sale until the stink subsides, though I don't think that'll make me very popular either.

I reckon we're on Week 2, thinking back to when things first went a bit ripe. I'm going to plug the holes with some expanding foam before I repair the false wall and that should help too.

Other than that, Del's de-stencher is in my Amazon basket and coffee grounds are doing an amazing job at masking the smell. The house has been locked up all day, so I had low expectations, but a combo of leaving the cupboard doors open and a cupful of coffee grounds means the house smells like a sitting downwind of the Gents in Starbucks.

[Beena]

The smell seemed to be fading yesterday, but came back with a vengeance yesterday evening. It was a background odour and suddenly bang! full on stench. I don't understand it. I've just caught a massive whiff of it now and I'm in the bedroom upstairs (dreading heading downstairs if I can smell it up here).

Bambs' thinks it's drains as it smells like rotten cabbage. It was definitely a dead mouse smell on Wednesday, but I can see her point. I think I'd rather leave the new owners with a rotting corpse than a blocked/busted drain. J is home today, so I'll see if he can lift the manhole cover so we can see what's going on. Fun times.

[Beena]

The smell seemed to be fading yesterday, but came back with a vengeance yesterday evening. It was a background odour and suddenly bang! full on stench. I don't understand it. I've just caught a massive whiff of it now and I'm in the bedroom upstairs (dreading heading downstairs if I can smell it up here).

Bambs' thinks it's drains as it smells like rotten cabbage. It was definitely a dead mouse smell on Wednesday, but I can see her point. I think I'd rather leave the new owners with a rotting corpse than a blocked/busted drain. J is home today, so I'll see if he can lift the manhole cover so we can see what's going on. Fun times.

[Estrella]

That’s really shit, Beena. I’m sorry it’s happening right before you sell. It’s Sod’s law this happens (our air con shit itself right before we moved out of our last place at much expense and our washer/dryer broke the day before we moved out of our place in Scotland - it was part of the sale so we gave them £££ to repair it)

[Beena]

It's always the way, Est. So far this week, the kitchen tap has fallen off and the shower showed signs of misbehaving. I've managed to fix both myself (all those years of watching tradesmen finally paid off).

I'm going to wait til J gets home and then decide whether to call someone out to have a look at the drains. We move on Monday. FML.

ETA: Inspection downstairs, and we are absolutely smell-free. I don't understand it. It hit you about halfway the down the stairs last night. I opened the hall window, which might have helped, but even the dead-mouse cupboard is odourless.

Maybe there's an army of nocturnally flatulent rats living under the house.

[Beena]

That’s really shit, Beena.

Prophetic.

The shared drain for our row of houses runs down our drive and it overflowing. The manhole cover popped up with the force. Not pleasant. Dyno-rod are on their way. So glad it happened today and not tomorrow when all our things are being loaded on vans.

[emma_p]

Oh my goodness I’m glad you found the cause though.

[Beena]

Me too. I was feeling awful about letting a young family move into the stink. At least we can do something about this. It's disgusting though. I'm having last day of Glasto flashbacks.

[emma_p]

There must be some kind of TMT curse as we have a wafting rotting stench which I suspect to be dead rat. The epicentre seems to be the cupboard under our stairs (which I have checked and can see no evidence but there us a small gap at the edge of the laminate leading to "Under the Floorboards" ) and it's now all I can smell

I have Thames Water (for the drains - we have a shared drain in front of our house) and also pest control coming out. I have Derek's odour eliminating bag arriving today. Have I covered all bases?? There is a poor unsuspecting couple moving here in a month's time

[Kenickie]

I'm never buying a house from a turtle.