This May Be the Point At Which I Move Out

A couple of months ago, we had a mouse problem.  It turned into a saga of epic proportions (or, at least, Snoopy-vs-The-Red-Baron proportions).  Before it was all over, there were numerous (unsuccessful) traps, over-turned furniture, a heart-rending speech about animal cruelty from the six-year-old neighbor girl, and a few late nights in which I nearly fell asleep sitting next to the fridge, broom in hand. 

The drama was heightened by the realization that we had not a mouse, but a family of mice.

Well, of course.

All across this country, the family unit is imploding upon itself in a vast case of moral decay, but WE get mice with a stubborn devotion to family values. 

The whole thing ended (I thought) just before Christmas.  The last mouse met his fate in a trap next to my fridge, while I, a previously humane soul, danced around my kitchen with glee.  Our rodent friends seem to have left me with a touch of crazy.

It turns out that's not the only thing they left.

When I started noticing a strange, midlew-ish smell in my laundry room, I began looking around for the culprit.  I couldn't find a thing, but the smell got worse.  And then worse.  Finally, a friend with experience in these matters (bless her heart) stopped by yesterday, took one whiff, and said, "I hate to tell you this, but you have a dead mouse."

Great.

We sniffed and searched and found that the smell is strongest just on either side of the wall that connects my kitchen to my laundry room.  We looked and looked for a logical entrance to the wall, but we couldn't find one, leading us to assume that (Yum! Enjoy your breakfast!) the mouse must have died actually IN the wall.  My friend told me that an open can of coffee grounds will help absorb the bad smell, but guess what one of my least favorite smells is?  Yep.  Coffee.  And now that I've smelled it mingled with dead mouse (Yum! Enjoy your breakfast!), I may never be able to step foot in a coffee shop again.

It is an occupational hazard of motherhood that you leave behind the diaper days with a wickedly strong sensitivity to smell.  As a result, I'm going a little crazy, resisting the urge to completely torch my laundry room (which I may yet do, considering I'm burning so many candles in there it looks like a Tibetan monastery). 

This is where I'm hoping the vast, random wealth of information on the Internet will come in handy.  I've done some Googling on the subject, and I'm hearing a wide range of suggestions and warnings.  Some people say the smell sticks around for months; others say it's gone in a few days.  If you have any knowledge or experience on the subject, I would be forever indebted to you for your best advice.  (And if you want to remain anonymous as you admit your experience in dealing with rotting animal flesh--Yum! Enjoy your breakfast!--I completely understand.)

Comments

[Kristi]

Try placing an open container of vanilla extract in the area. It also is good at absorbing odors and has a pleasant smell itself.

[Lynnet]

Mice are the worst! We *sheepish grin* raise mice (they're confined in a tank) to feed our snake, and we've learned some terrible things. They can have up to 14 babies in a litter, they get pregnant immediately after having babies, and they don't care who they mate with. Get the daddy! They are stinky creatures with horrible hygiene. We've had two episodes of wild mice dying in our walls. Was the most horrible thing, especially in the kitchen! Lots of luck!

[Lynnet]

Oh, yeah, I forgot the most encouraging thing about mice - they have babies every 20 days!!! eek! Get the Daddy!

[Anonymous]

When I was growing up, we had a mouse in the dryer vent hose - it came in from the outside in cold weather and expired. I will never forget that odor for as long as I live. Good luck!

[Mrs. S]

We just had a mouse the other day. I prayed so hard that it would die in a trap that night, and PRAISE THE LORD it did! I was so happy I too danced around the house! LOL! We have had a mouse die in the wall. I know that disgusting smell so well I can tell others when they too have a dead mouse on the premises. Ours did not last months, maybe a week? I love the smell of coffee, but I am pretty sure NOTHING would smell good mixed in with the smell of decay!

[Adventures In Babywearing]

Oh my goodness. I had been trying to think about what the smell could be for you but never would have thought THAT! So what will you do??!

Steph

[Julie Stiles Mills]

With my dad, it was a squirrel. It got into the attic, fell down between some walls, got stuck and died. Behind the pantry wall in the kitchen, right in the middle of the house.

He cut the drywall open, removed the squirrel and patched it.

[Julie Stiles Mills]

With my dad, it was a squirrel. It got into the attic, fell down between some walls, got stuck and died. Behind the pantry wall in the kitchen, right in the middle of the house.

He cut the drywall open, removed the squirrel and patched it.

[CousinJ]

Shannon, I feel your pain. When we lived in Shreveport some sort of rodent got in the wall behind the OVEN of all places. The Terminex man sad he couldn't get to it so we'd just have to wait it out till the thing decayed enough for the smell to disappear. Gee thanks...........

[Sarah the secret blower]

well, one critter in our country abode mets its fate while crawling around inside the top of our electric oven...

I started detectin' that somethin wuzznt quite right and I flipped the top of my oven up to find the little varmint

caught in mid air with two little mits making target with the electical do-hickies, if not for the grossness,

it was downright comical...

needless to say, I let my hubbie come home and dispose of him proper...

[Heather]

I wish I didn't know about this - but unfortunately I do. We have ahd the dead-mouse-in-the-wall experience. It does go away. Eventually.
My husband is kind enough to try to not tell me about the critters and just handle it.
I LOATHE the boogers- but I am very thankful to have mice every few years versus infestations of bugs!
I prefer larger, hairier vermin. I don't know- I am wierd!

[lynn @ queenofthecastlerecipes]

Well it looks like LOTS of other readers have had the same experience. Ours was when an electrician came to do some rewiring, cut into the wall and extracted a mouse skeleton or two that had been there probably long before we moved in. I'm glad he got it out, and once the wall was repaired and repainted, there was no sign anything was ever remiss. So if your hubby is handy at all, you might think about slicing that sucker open (the wall, not the mouse :o) and getting it out of there. Best of luck!

[Mommy, the Human Napkin]

Oh, how I feel your pain. We've had mice die in the walls, in the floor vents, under the fridge, in the dryer vent hose. Yeah, not much will take the stink away. I've used Febreze with good results, though, and some candles, and the baking soda trick. Although I've never heard of that mentholatum trick mentioned above, so I'll try that, too. What's almost as bad as dead mouse stink is mouse-nest-in-the-insulation-on-top-of-my-stove stink. Open windows and spray some odor eliminator around.

We live in the middle of fields out in the country, so mice are inevitable for us. The best way I've found to keep them from dying where I can't reach is to kill them fast when I see them. No mercy. I use a BB gun and we set traps at night (not sticky traps, the "snap their necks" kind), but I've also resorted to bludgeoning and stomping. I hate mice. I also try to deter them from making nests in the house by keeping the closet floors free of anything they can chew up or anything they can climb easily. This means I only use Rubbermaid or hard plastic containers. I started doing this after I found a nest of newborn mice in a cardboard box full of my childhood mementos, which they had used to make the nest. Ick. I make sure there aren't any clothes hanging close to the floor. Trying to keep them under control seems to help keep the population down, but I still find their droppings sometimes in out-of-the-way places, like behind the washing machine. I have a whole category on my blog dedicated to the critters.

We now have a cat that stays inside at night, which helps, too. I'd choose having to clean the litter box over dead mouse stink any day.

[Rachel Boldman]

LOL--we dealt with a very similar problem, except that involved a giant RAT...and we moved. I, of course, blogged about it: http://rachelboldman.blogspot.com/2009/01/not-creature-was-stirring-except-for.html

check it out!

I really really really hope that your dead mouse problem remedies itself, somehow. I don't have any suggestions though because, like I said, we had to move. Maybe you could call an exterminator and he can get it out for you? ewwww just thinking about it makes me feel all yucky. prayers for you!

[Renee]

Ok, I haven't checked blogs for a couple of days, so when I read about your "mouse" problem today, I just about fell off my chair laughing! (Thank goodness it was past breakfast time!!) I think this is grounds for moving!! And then reading the comments section. . . it set me off again. I'm wiping away tears as I am typing. Horrid experience, but You have my total sympathy. I HATE mice! Grew up on a farm, saw them waaaaayyyyy too often. Nasty little creatures. Good luck and I hope the smell fades quickly!!

[Stacey]

The same thing happened to me. Thankfully the smell did go away quickly. Found out why we had mice. One of the cats was brining them in and being some sort of animal rights activist - he wasn't killing them. We caught him a couple of times hauling live mice into the garage.

[Shoebee]

Just got done dealing with this same issue last week. It takes 1-2 weeks to for the smell to go completely away, but in the mean time....yuck. Getting yourself a container or fish tank charcoal and opening it up and leaving it in the room that offends can help (charcoal is a great odor asorber), also, getting a bottle of peppermint oil and putting some drops of the oil on a cotton ball and then placing the cotton ball nearby will help mask the odor. I use this trick in the hospital when someone has a terrible wound (rotting flesh) and you can actually walk in the room without gagging. (Terrible to say, but some people have such bad wounds that they smell worse than rotting mouse...wounds that are nothing more that rotting flesh...). After doing this, families have even thanked the staff for the odor control measures.
You could even place the peppermint oil on the furnace filter to easily spread the nice peppermint smell throughout the house.

[Brandi]

Once I heard a mouse scratching in my wall. It sounded frantic, trying to get out. And it did get out. It chewed a hole in the wall.

I still haven't patched it.

[Lisa @ Stop and Smell the Chocolates]

We had a family of rats in our attic. We had heard not to use poison or we would end up with dead rodent smell, which apparently signals other rodents in the area that this is a good place to live. Hubby decided to save $ by becoming an exterminator and set up traps himself in the attic and kept removing. We killed 7 (blech) and now they are all gone. Also found the spot where they were getting in off of the roof, so we can block it.

I have never experienced that smell, but really hope that it goes away quickly! Don't you need to take a 2-week vacation to a sunny spot somewhere??

[jennifer]

For future prevention of mouse stink...there is some poison called "Just one bite" (you can get at Southern Ag in Tulsa) that is supposed to make them decay in such a way that they won't stink. If you have a crawl space, just throw some under there occaisionaly and you can keep the nasty critters from every entering your house.

[Miriam]

I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse.
Walt Disney

Not sure if that is a help... but I'll be praying for the air to clear. We have only ever had bats, though one did catch fire once. (It was his own fault for hanging out in our chimney, which is exactly what my aunt was shrieking as he flew off like a beacon in the night.)

[happyvalleygirl]

I can sympathize! We had a horrendous smell that seemed to be coming from our wall too, only it was worse than dead mouse smell. I even had to cancel my piano lessons for two weeks because it went throughout the whole house!

Just as I raised the sledge hammer to put a hole in the drywall, it hit a pair of snow pants hanging in the closet and the smell got real strong. Came to find out that a chipmunk had crawled into a pair of snow pants left laying on the garage floor and died. And as I was excerising my motherly duties, I picked them up, brought them into the basement and hung them up!!

So maybe you could lay some snow pants around and see what happens!

[Mrs. Fun]

OHNO! that story is like my worst nightmare.
we had a mouse/rat that chewed through our dishwasher hose and a hose on my then minivan. that sucker met his match Chistmas eve..that was the best gift ever, lol.

[Penny Raine]

Be grateful you don't live in the country.... on a farm..... where the mice are bigger. YUCK! We can't use poison, for fear of the same problem you have, so it is up to the kitties.

The smell ought to go away in a couple days.

blessings, Penny Raine
http://pennyraine.com/blog

[Carrie]

Oh, I'm so sorry. At the camp where I work, we have a lot of mice & this happens in our buildings occasionally. The smell should be gone in about a week or two, i would guess. I have no advice. We usually just have to let it smell until it's gone.

This summer something was smelling above one of our staffer's rooms & it ended up being a dead rat in the insulation between the ceiling & the upstairs floor. Thankfully this was discovered while I was NOT present!

[Jules]

Don't know if I'm too late, but there is something called odor absorbing gel. It's a small tub/jar with a solid gel. It actually absorbs odors. They use them when there's water damage in basements and it will literally absorb the musty, water-damage smell.

Just Google "odor absorbing gel". There are a number of brands and I'm sure you can find them at any hardware store.

[Maria M]

Baking soda works well in absorbing odors. I can sympathize because I had a family of mice that I use to see everywhere (kitchen, behind the TV, etc..).

We called the exterminator to take care of them. He informed me that they usually start hiding in your home in September when the weather gets cold. I hope they don't return ever. Yuk! and Yuk.

[Shelley@Thrifty Gal]

EWWWWW! What a terrible problem! I did not have this happen in my home but at a former place of employment. They never did anything about it and it got worse and worse. Then I had to quit that job because we moved. Sorry, no happy ending to that story :) Hope the smell disappates soon!

[WhiteStone]

Growing up in the 1950s/60s our country home was regularly infested with mice. Traps worked sometimes. Poison worked best. With poison the critters do sometimes die in inaccessible places. Be assured the odor will eventually disappear. Patience. Fortitude. Read up on mouse-proofing your home.

[Simply Sandy]

We had the same thing happen once, and my husband finally took the switch plate off the light switch, and there he was. That dumb mouse had electrocuted himself in our light switch. It was very yucky, but at least we were able to get rid of the terrible smell. Might not hurt to check the electrical outlets!

[Jenn]

We had this problem when we moved into our new house. There had to be hoards of them - I could hear them skittering up and down the walls. We set out bait, mostly because the critter guy pointed out that for every mouse we caught, 15 were sneaking by saying "LOSER" and snickering.

Needless to say, we had a nest of babies die in the basement ceiling. And we have a finished basement.

The solution? Charcoal.

Get a small bag of grill charcoal, and either pour some in a bag (or do what hubby did, said Screw it, opened the bag, and left it in the middle of the furnace room.
It WILL absorb the odors.

It will pass. But it does suck. Hang in there!

[Jena (Organizing Mommy)]

Once the mouse hits the rigamortis stage, the smell goes away.