this stinks

[leftofthedial]

some critter has crawled up under my deck and died.

pyeeeeewwwww! The house was uninhabitable last night from the smell.

I can not for the life of me find it. It's 90 degrees and sunny out there and I've ripped up half the deck looking for it to no avail!

Crap!

[Bouncy Ball]

1. Um, gross.

It's almost 95 here. Ick. Too hot.

Hope you find it, that's nasty.

[leftofthedial]

5. I don't know what to do except to keep demolishing my deck

and looking for it.

Now, with all the boards ripped up, the smell is more diffuse and it's harder to find an obvious source.

I suppose I could take my dog out. She'd find it. Uhhh. Maybe I shouldn't.

[Misunderestimator]

2. The smell will go away in about 2 or 3 weeks...

believe me... I know... :puke: It's almost impossible to find the little buggers.

[leftofthedial]

3. time for a vacation!

[In_The_Wind]

4. yuck

I'm afraid I'll be facing the same predicament soon ~ I'm putting out mouse poison. The have-a-heart traps only work just so long when one has an ample supply of bird seed for the mice to feed upon ~ then there's a population explosion that's gotta go!

[leftofthedial]

6. this is definitely bigger than a mouse

maybe a skunk or a feral cat or a raccoon . . .

I can't believe I can't find it.


good luck with the mice.

I think my neighbor who is selling his house, put out poison to get rid of skunks and raccoons and now the critters are dying.

Unfortunately, that means cats, skunks, raccoons, birds . . .

he's a fundy xtian bushturdbot and part of the culture of life, so he can kill whatever he wants since he's forgiven.

[In_The_Wind]

10. good luck

I really hate killing anything but this has reached the point where we can no longer say "isn't that cute". They've gotten into the linen closet. Somethings were OK after washing but somethings did have to be thrown out. On the nights that they are chewing on whatever in the ceiling - it sounds BIG and like we are going to be nose to nose any minute:scared:

[leftofthedial]

14. I hear you

we've had plagues of mice aobut every four or five years here.

They get everywhere and into everything.

I bet I have a hundered of their little lives on my conscience. We never had to resort to poison though. It's so indiscriminate.

Good luck ridding yourself of the mice.

[merh]

7. I had that happen, but not under my deck, under my house,

right at my doorstep. It was my beloved cat, Jettie :cry:. Jettie was a beautiful black bob tail cat, part manx. He was just old and decided to die there, in the place that I latter learned was where he brought his treasures and trophies. I had thought he had run off.

The smell filled the house and the guy who promised to come remove Jettie never showed, so I doned coveralls, googles, long sleeves and gloves, pulled my hair back into a bandana and, complete with a large piece of cardboard and shovel, inched my way under the house, from the back to the front. I was saying prayers to St. Francis all along the way. There were all of these dead squirrel heads, Jettie's trophies, and there were spider webs and just yuck.

It was horrendous and a scene from Pet Cementary. I was crying and trying not to breath and struggling to get his body on the cardboard. I was eventually successful, then I slowly inched my way to the back of the house and sat and cried for an hour with a tall tumbler of crown on the rocks.

I couldn't leave him there. I had to take care of him. To this day, I refuse to own another cat. :cry:

[leftofthedial]

8. sad story

:hug:

I can't fit under the deck. There is only about 8 inches of clearance and less in some places. I have about half the boards removed in the area where the smell is. Now I can see under most of the parts that aren't removed, but there are spaces under there (the deck was built over a porch and a root cellar of some sort) I can't see into or reach . . .


Aaaaack! This is hideous and gross.

[merh]

9. Oh it is hideous,

until you have experienced it, you really don't know. :puke:

Can you see anything at all that could be the critter? If you can, get some lye. They say that will kill the smell and help the critter deteriorate.

Also, do you have an animal control office with your Sheriff or public works department? Some times they can or will come out to help in situations like this.

Best of luck to you and thank you for the hug! :pals:

[davsand]

11. While you have the deck torn up put down some chicken wire.

You might want to just go ahead and fence off the underside of your deck with some chicken wire since you have it torn up. Might keep another animal from doing the smae thing in another month or two...

I'm sorry!


Laura

[leftofthedial]

12. good advice

:thumbsup:

[kmla]

13. That happened to me at our last house...

A possum had crawled up under the deck to live his last days - I begain to smell him after awhile. Luckily this happened about the same time I was going to tear the damned thing down anyway.

When I finally uncovered his final resting place, it seems as if he had chosen to pass on in the same little cubby hole that two previous generations of possums had called their own.

Yep. Three dead possums. One stinky, one decayed, and one which was merely a skeleton.

Nasty-ass critters, those possums. Bleccch.

[bearfan454]

15. Use bleach to remove the smell

after you find it.

[leftofthedial]

16. thanks!

I'll try it.

I'm giving up for the afternoon. I have to go to a concert. Still no sign of it. It's weird. I can smell it, but I can't find it.