Rotting corpse, moaning children and yoga

[BigBaublesGalore]

I woke up today and decided I would start a new positive routine, healthy eating and yoga (as I'm overweight and my health is suffering) I got up early with ds, sat down in the lounge with my morning coffee and could smell something REALLY FUNKY!

I kept getting whiffs of it but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Anyway... got the yoga mat out from the back of the sofa, Sat on it and again I could smell this funky smell... now I'm thinking it might be me as I'm in a different room...

Anyway as soon as I start the yoga the kids decide to start a bickering session about whose going to eat all the Pringles later... (because I told them they're not having them for breakfast)

So 3:15 seconds into the yoga I just gave up because I couldn't even hear adrienne telling me to breath calming deep breaths over the children bickering and even when I could the stench of that smell was horrible...

I sniffed the mat some more and yep I finally remember... it's the smell of death! I've experienced that smell before when the cats bought in a mouse and hid it behind my washing basket... Ive traced the smell to the back of the sofa where the mats are stored... the ends of the mat that touch the carpet smell rancid...

I pulled the whole front room out, Xmas tree and all, lifted all the sofas (at least I got a workout) but fuck me there's not a single corpse down there but it stinks!

Not even fabreeze is covering it up

What could it be?

Aibu to eat the whole tub of Pringles in spite

That's a feckin big rat. I'd deffo be getting Rentokil round to see if it had any friends!

Oh OP, I feel for you.
Up until September this year we were in a heavily infested house, it got so bad the Rats just hung out in the garden in the day time, they didn't give a shit about humans or cats/dogs etc.
They'd leave nests of babies in the door frames so we couldn't go out.
The walls and loft were full of them, you could hear them.,
Peers control said there was nothing we could do, they were in the whole street that had been built on an old swamp and was connected to a busy train station platform.

It's was utterly miserable. The HA who owned it would occasionally send someone to fill the walls and loft with poison so then we'd get 'the smell' which in a few weeks became a fucking huge fly infestation, the front and back garden was full of bloated, dying or dead rats the size of small cats. It a was bloody miserable existence and we lived there for 7 YEARS.

Bloody hell op! Is this the ground floor? Do bats do low down? How are they getting in there?

I'd get in touch with a ratcatcher (or the modern equivalent) and see if you can have the place disinfested? I hedgehog got trapped behind my cooker once, having wandered in out of the garden, so I know what a rotting corpse smells like

Photos

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats
That is GRIM! Is it a rat?

They were ops photos now or mine incase anyone couldn't see them

@BigBaublesGalore

So did that rat actually smell then? Just that it doesn't look THAT decomposed 😬

Not mine * haha

I know the smell from moving into a student house where the previous tenants had switched off the fridge, not realising that they had left a bag of frozen chicken in there - it was crawling with maggots by the time I got there.

Yeah that rat did smell awful! We found it after I removed a bat from that section, dp got a huge whiff when I pulled out the bat and then had a look and it was dead in the corner. I tried to move it out with a stick but it was heavy! I thought it had decomposed enough to stick to the floor but it was just actually huge! Surprising how strong the smell was considering how it looked

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats what on Earth!! Is that a rat? That's vile!

I can still smell it but it's definitely not as strong! There was also what looked like fresh blood on the wall down there but im not sure. I'll get a pic one sec

Yes - that was a (very) large rat who had (I would guess) succumbed to the poison spread liberally around the farm where my store was.
When we found and removed him we discovered that despite looking completely mummified he still had a (leaking) soft centre 🤮

We used a video to see what was under there... it's a screenshot from that... looks like blood on the wall there

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats that is absolutely horrifying! So pleased I didn't just leave it there now in the hope it was mouse

@FMyUterus thank you! I couldn’t see the updated photos.
OP I sympathise, we really thought my mum had a gas leak when a rat died under her floorboards. Then we remembered that she uses oil fired heating...

Have you or your neighbours put mouse/rat poison down recently OP?

I suspect someone nearby has a rodent problem and has laid poison. The rat has eaten it, felt unwell and crawled under your floor and died. Poison causes death by internal bleeding hence the blood on the wall - it's probably from the rats nose or bottom.

You need to block access to the underfloor before using poison as otherwise things will keep crawling in and dying

@IfoundGavin

If you find a range of dead animals in your house , you have rats. If you find a dead rat , then you have even bigger rats...

Sadly this is true.

I saw all the photos, oh yes I did 🤮

(Also, fair play to you & DH dealing with all those corpses. Not in a million years would I manage that.)

I think this might be the absolute worst thread I’ve ever read. I’m petrified of rats/bats/mice/dead things. I can rescue a spider no bother though

You are so brave OP! Glad you found the root cause of the smell.

This is grim. Honestly one of my fears is finding an infestation...

Bloody hell OP!

My strong advice is, don’t put your house together just yet, you want someone in to figure out where all these creatures are getting in and block it up.

Floorboards look Victorian - do you have a cellar or old grilles that might be letting tiny beasties get in?

Why has every small animal in close proximity to your house chosen to crawl under your floorboards and die?! Awful! Hope it’s sorted

That is utterly rank.... I know that smell, It's Eau de boiled cabbage and cherry Bakewell

My daughter found the decomposing body of a huge rat under her wardrobe in the bedroom at her dad's house.. ..she generally liked to live in a shit tip as a teenager and didn't notice the smell until it got really offensive. The poor rat chose her bedroom to crawl up the stairs and die in...

Get yourself a fecking big cat, a tiger or puma should do it

What a great thread ! Well done op !

Please tell me that was a tiny hammer, OP? Even my biologist self who was quite enjoying the skeleton pictures shuddered at that.

This has defo made my night. However I’d be burning my house down if I smelt something like that 🤣🤣

@Thatusernamewastaken I think because we're surrounded by fields... surprised to find a couple of bats in there though 🤔

@ManxiousCat oh wow that's shocking! Your poor daughter... did she keep her room tidy after that?