# Horrible Smell



## Metalhead95 (Jul 8, 2018)

Hey everybody! 

I'm new to the forum and just bought my first house back in March. The house is about 60 years old, and the two previous owners before me didn't stay long but did not take good care of the house. The day after we bought it, we found lots of evidence of a mouse problem in the basement- which we eradicated quickly. When working in the kitchen, we pulled out all the appliances and found mouse droppings everywhere. By the end of April, we got everything fixed up and moved in. We had noticed "the smell" in the kitchen in early April, but attributed it to the fact that the previous owners were, honestly, slobs and had a mouse problem. 

Ever since we moved in, we smell the smell every day. It comes from around some cabinets next to the oven. We had pulled out all the drawers, cleaned up the whopping amount of mice poop, disinfected, repainted, and still the smell remains. It's a hard smell to describe, but my best way of putting it is a strong rotting odor with a little bit of feces mixed in. 

I'm at a loss for what to do. I figured it was a dead mouse somewhere for the longest time, that had maybe crawled into the drywall somewhere. But we don't smell it all the time. It'll be there for maybe 20 mins, get really strong, and fade quickly. Wash, rinse, repeat a few times a day. And it's been there for 3 months, and from what I've read a dead mouse can smell for a few weeks but not that long. It's not gas either, as we normally light a candle to try to get rid of the smell and we haven't blown up. 

Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. We put a lot of work into the house, fixed it up really nice but the stupid nagging smell remains.


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

> normally light a candle to try to get rid of the smell and we haven't blown up.


Hey, good way to test for a gas leak. Need to make notes 

Do you have central air? Could be in one of your ducts. Do you run ceiling fans? It could account for the in and out smell. Do you know what death smells like? It is an acrid sharp smell that would gag a maggot. If you think it is a mouse/rat, turn off the air and fans and follow the smell. It could be behind a wall for sure, or in one of your air registers.


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

With that much mouse poop in the places you found it I would suspect much more somewhere inside a wall. Mice will poo all over but prefer to use a specific location for their business. You will definitely know it when you find one, both poo and urine create a horrible smell. And if it is inside a wall the smell might only drift out when the wind is blowing, just a guess.

As for where, one possibility would be where any plumbing pipes pass through the drywall. Sometimes electrical holes are oversized but a mouse doesn't require a large opening. If any of the places you cleaned up looked like water stains that could be a hint, it might not have been water.

Now, not sure it would show up but I have located several rodent infestations using my infrared camera. Unfortunately I did so during the winter when images are more telling. Never tried it during hot weather but someone skilled with infrared imaging in your area might help.

Bud


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## hankdiy (Jul 10, 2018)

It is a dead mouse or mice. Probably died from rat poison. Unless you want to tear into the wall just leave it all alone and the dead mouse will decompose and the smell will go away within 3 weeks or less. Put a fan in the window.

Put some peanut butter out to night to make sure all the mice/rats are gone. Plug all holes from the outside.


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