Something died in my dryer vent

[1gobluedem]

Now all my clean laundry smells like dead rodent. Ugh.

[KitchenWitch]

1. EWWW

Best of luck retrieving it...

[1gobluedem]

2. There are some jobs I won't do

And that's one of them. Handyman will replace the vent and dispose of the corpse.

[KitchenWitch]

3. Yes, that is a job I would not do as well

[Kali]

4. if it were in the vent why would it make your clothes stink?

maybe its in the dryer cabinet.

Sometimes the cat doesn't do a good job and I detect a deceased lizard or mouse under some piece of furniture. First think I do is dump a bunch of comet on it. Kills the odor and the bleach also kills nasties. Then the scraping can commence.

[1gobluedem]

5. We poured bleach behind the washer and dryer but the smell is still there

I think whatever it is is in the aluminum tube that goes from the dryer to the outside and the smell comes in through that. But, I'm calling the handyman today; if it's not in the tube he can check the dryer cabinet.

[Kali]

6. good luck!

another reason I enjoy my mostly dry climate - they mummify and stop stinking pretty quickly!

[MorningGlow]

7. Oh noes!

So sorry to hear that. That happened to us in our first house, about 10 years ago. OMG I can still remember that particular odor--toasted mouse. x(

Do you have the open type of vent? Rodents love to crawl up in there--makes a great house. We had to change ours to one made up of plastic slats that opened only when the dryer was running (the hot air blew them open).

[1gobluedem]

9. The people who lived here before me constructed a complicated wire screen over the vent

In theory you only need to remove the screws to get the lint out, then put them back in. In practice, it stinks, I finally just cut the damn thing open with wire cutters then tried to rewire them together. I suspect the critter; either a mouse or a chipmunk squeezed through somehow, those things can get through almost any opening.

No cat, so I can't put the blame on that.

[DS1]

8. Wash the cat!

/twisted logic

[Pool Hall Ace]

10. Sounds like a dryer cleaning kit may be a good investment.

Here's a link to just one of them. They come in a variety of price ranges. I don't remember where my husband got ours, but I know Ace Hardware has them.

It's really important to keep the vent clean, because built-up link can cause house fires.

http://www.asseenontvguys.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=90

[applegrove]

11. At university residence, in the kitchen, there was this awful smell for the longest time. Turns out

it was a dead mouse. We didn't find it for months. Lucky you at least have identified the problem.