some of you know this story, and are therefore forewarned. those of you who don't know this story, it is gross. G-R-O-S-S, bleh gross. so if you think you have a weak stomach, i recommend skipping this post. i'm sure your morbid curiosity will prevail, but i might say "i told you so" at the end :o)
so after our lobster adventure, we came home to find a foul odor in our house. it smelled like someone had left raw chicken scraps in the trash. the short version of the story is that chris and i stuck our nose in every piece of everything in our house, and couldn't find anything. the trash was fine, the lizard tank was fine, the bathroom was fine, we couldn't find any misplaced dirty diapers. one day after we came home, about a week after the smell began, we decided it was literally the air that smelled. sometime just after that we noticed that the smell seemed to go away if the heat wasn't on...and got worse when it was on. so my brave, knight in shining armor, hubby jumps on a chair to skip his nose in the heat vent. (all of our registers are in the ceiling...which makes absolutely no sense to me). since he had stuck his nose in countless other things that hadn't smelled, i don't think he was expecting anything different. but as he got his nose up there, and took a HUGE sniff, he almost puked in the sink. the smell was definitely coming from the air ducts. we guessed that something had died in our walls. what to do? i don't know who to call if my air smells. so we left a few messages for some air quality folks, and one for a duct cleaning guy. the duct cleaning guy called and asked if we had an outdoor furnace. this is another thing that makes little sense to me, but truth-be-told, our new house has two furnaces. the upstairs one is in the attic, and the downstairs one is outside. the duct guy said he could almost guarantee that a mouse had crawled in the duct outside and died, but that it would be at least $500 for him to come look. (some service call fee!!! i'm in the wrong business!) anyway, chris asked if there was anything he could do, and the duct guy told him where to look. he also said that mice usually take 2 weeks to decay, so we could wait if we wanted to. um, no thank you. chris, you're going outside! ;o)
it was late in the afternoon when chris got the call, and it was too dark to go looking outside. he would look the next morning. meanwhile, we had invited friends of ours over for dinner and were mortified to have them come to a really smelly house. however, i think the worst part is that after a while, you started to get used to it! that just grossed me right out...that i could be inhaling such a putrid smell, and not notice it after a while. now, the great thing was that the smell was contained to the downstairs. so at least we could sleep in peace. i digress. so the next day, chris prepares for his mouse hunt. he gets some gloves and an old broom rod that the previous owner had left behind. now, the outdoor furnace looks like a big industrial unit - i'm pretty sure its both a heater and an air conditioner. there is a large flashing-sort of cover that bridges the gap between the unit and the house. this is where the duct guy told chris to look. also, the furnace has a lot of landscaping around it, which hadn't been tended to in who knows how long. so chris was clearing out leaves and pine needles and such. the flashing part is a pretty big part, so chris was using the broom handle to dig underneath it. as he was doing that, he hit something squishy. the guy had told him to look for a mouse, so that was what chris had expected to find. he managed to get the "mouse" close to the edge of the flashing...only to find an 8 pound hairy ball of liquid and mucus (i told you it was a gross story). between the way the animal looked, how big it was, and the intensity of the smell after chris disrupted it, my poor knight jumped over the bushes, around the meter and gagged until he puked :o( he went into the house and googled dead animal removal. he found a local place called "trapper dan".
chris tried to call from the office, but the furnace is right outside the office window...so the office was starting to smell terrible. trapper dan told chris he would have someone there right away - and chris got out of the office as quickly as he could. when the trapper dan guy got there, chris was explaining to him the problem. turns out the "mouse" was really an opossum!!! an opossum that had gnawed through the caulk, crawled in my duct, and had been there at least 2 weeks! (gross!) the thing had crawled so far in that the guy had to use some special 90-degree grabber. in the meantime, chris had to excuse himself from the scene...he just couldn't take the smell anymore. while chris was standing in the garage, all of a sudden he heard gagging. THE TRAPPER DAN GUY PUKED!!! he said it was the worst dead animal removal he had ever experienced...and this was a veteran remover! he asked chris for an extra grocery bag AND a yard bag! so my poor knight had to help his guy put the dead opossum in the bag...poor thing! after both guys had collected themselves, the trapper dan guy only charged chris the removal fee, even though he re-caulked our duct and was supposed to charge us for labor. he said that it was such a horrible experience that he couldn't bring himself to charge us full price. sweet, until you really think about it.
all of this happened around lunch time. by the time thalia and i had gotten home after work, the smell was almost gone!! it was amazing to walk into the house and not gag, or be really frustrated. unfortunately, chris was not as easily remedied. he couldn't get the smell out of his nose or his head. he was up sick all night! my hero!
i really think this event, or rather the fixing of this event, means the tide is turning on our frustration with the house. so many little things that have gone wrong, and really get under your sink and make you start to second guess your decision. but now, almost all of the boxes are gone. i still owe you a few pictures. but the house is really starting to feel like our home...and not a big piece of junk.
i hope you made it through without getting sick. i tried to warn you. i have some pictures on my laptop that i'll try to post later. and gamma sent me some "before"pictures from the house. i may re-post some of the house pictures so you can see before and after.
bleh...not a good story to start my morning. but like i usually say, if i have to know it, so does everyone else!
much love and more sleep,
c, c, and t
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