Dead rodent under the floorboards, how long will the stench last?
Posted by FolkPhilosopher@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 35 comments
One of my cats brought in a live rodent last Thursday night and likely maimed it. The thing then crawled in a gap between the skirting board and the floorboards and died. Now the cabbagy smell has started.
How long will the nightmare last before the bedroom doesn't smell rancid?
I'm arguing with my wife that it would be ideal to cut a hole in the floorboards to try and get rid of it. My wife is adamant it's a terrible idea as we don't know for certain how far it's gone and might end up still having the smell but having fucked floorboards.
She's now got some of those mouse odour things but I'm skeptical about them working and I'm concerned that the smell will just come back again next year.
Long_Huckleberry1751@reddit
The smell is nothing compared to the maggots and the flies. God, the flies.
Swedish_Rockstar@reddit
The smell will last for a few weeks depending on the size of the rodent and how much airflow there is around the corpse.
But you've also potentially got flies to concern yourself with. We had a dead rat somewhere under a cavity floor years ago - we thought the smell was bad but the biblical plague of flies was a next level of grim altogether.
I wish you the best of luck - hope it's all over quickly.
PaintedIn@reddit
Pick up an ONO block, removes all smell. They use them in sewers.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
The tub things?
PaintedIn@reddit
yeah
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
I'll give them a try, thank you!
iloovehugecock@reddit
Ummm I dunno where other people are getting a few weeks from. When we had mice we had the council come and investigate and they put poison down (despite me insisting we didn’t want poison to be used).
This caused a mouse to die under our bathroom floor, and the smell lasted a solid year at least. And it didn’t get better or weaker over time. It was a solid year of awful stench that made using the bathroom very unpleasant. After about a year it started to dissipate and not smell as bad.
Flowers330@reddit
You should try to remove it, the smell can really get so disgusting when it gets warm and if you are unlucky it can last more than a month at the strongest, and the smell taints all soft furnishings and even wood in the area for long after that.
Jacktheforkie@reddit
How big was it? Rats can smell for easily a month, mice for a few days
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
I suspect it was a mouse. Cats usually go hunting at the nearby brook and the rats down there ain't small but the gap is. I know rats can squeeze through tight holes but I suspect even a rat would struggle through there.
Jacktheforkie@reddit
I see
MaxMouseOCX@reddit
You're going to want to try and dehydrate it... Can you make the bedroom where it is really warm? That'll speed up drying it out.
Note: this is a pretty stupid solution, but I'd guess it makes the process a bit quicker and keeps your floor intact at the cost of heating that room up.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
It's already a relatively warm room compared to the rest of the house but could bang in an oil heater, I suppose.
MaxMouseOCX@reddit
Well, you're not digging your floor boards up - I can see where that one ends up, you do it... Don't find the dead animal? Oof that's gonna be a problem.
Ultimately, you should get it out, but it's a small animal, it'll decay/dry out soon enough - if you can put up with dealing with that for a while.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
I think that's what my wife is concerned about, the cutting/ripping up the floorboard just to find out it's not there.
We've deployed a couple of things to try and at the very least mask the odour so let's hope it's a mouse and it's not going to drag on too long.
MerchantofDoom@reddit
Watch out for flies - came home from holiday to 100s of them once. Same cause! Good luck!
Responsible-Ad-1086@reddit
Was there a priest and a voice saying “get out”?
MerchantofDoom@reddit
lol no! But I can’t unhear my old and sadly departed neighbour saying in his very strong West Country accent - “well it ain’t never right, what’s been goin on ere”
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
Funnily, in a way, when my wife was pregnant with the first, we had a hedgehog in the crawlspace under the dining room floor when it was getting done up and we were greeted by a sea of flies. Hoping to get away without the flies this time.
Bjork_scratchings@reddit
We’ve had it couple times. You get a few days of smell then a few days of flies and then that’s it. Don’t start cutting up your floor.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
Copy that. Consensus seems to be that cutting the floor is a bit of a daft idea at the moment.
CrustyHumdinger@reddit
Years ago, we had a rat die in the loft. I couldn't find the damn thing. OMG it stank. And the flies were like Zeppelins.
Couple of weeks.
ben_jamin_h@reddit
We had rats and put down poison, then the stench began.
It was at its worst about 2 weeks after the poisoning, then it gradually faded for another 2 weeks. After 6 weeks, it was completely gone.
A kind Redditor told me to get carpet deodorant stuff, shake and vac style granules. Spread them on your carpets or brush them across your floor so they slip down the floorboard cracks, and just leave them there for a couple of weeks. It helped us hugely with the stench. Also those neutradol balls that constantly let off odour neutralising smell were pretty good too. I also bought some air wick auto dispenser spray thingies and put one under the stairs where there was too much stuff to get access to put the granules, and one in a little cubby hole under the bath area to stop the stink coming up that way.
It didn't completely cure the stench but it made it a whole lot more bearable until the rat(s?) had decomposed enough to stop stinking.
Sorry for your noses.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
Thank you for your commiserations.
We have some shake and vac style stuff so might use that as well as the odour neutralising sachets. Hadn't thought about that tbh, so thank you for the advice!
Jaded_Leg_46@reddit
Lifting the one floorboard rather than cutting into it is your best bet. If you're unsure you could speak to a pest control company to remove it for you, clean the area and put the floorboard back and block the gap.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
Unfortunately cutting would be the only option as I've built a wardrobe and in my rotten luck, the gap is near floorboards that go straight under the wardrobe.
I'm definitely going to keep pest control on speed dial in case it leads to more mice or rats.
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
About 2 weeks based on when a rat died under the floor at my work desk in ducting they couldn't access. The smell gets really bad for about first week and then gradually dies off. You can get an endoscope to check where it is for about £10. Once rat decomposed, there wasn't any more smell.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
I'm tempted by an endoscope to locate it and get it out but given we had the floor done less than a year ago, my wife is probably not keen on me cutting holes full stop.
Luckily I think it was a mouse or a shrew rather than a rat so hoping that it'll take less given the smaller size but I'll definitely follow your advice and plug that gap once the smell is gone.
Timely_Egg_6827@reddit
Just to say, air fresheners made it worse - I had to shift desk for a week but sickly sweet air freshener over rotting corpse was just nasty. This is going to sound odd but used on hamsters before - live hamsters - put tights over the end of a hoover and see if you can sunction mouse out.
FolkPhilosopher@reddit (OP)
Oh that's a shout?
Ok_Cow_3431@reddit
We've had mice die under the floorboards before. Stench is horrific but passes within a week
The cadaver flies are a real pain though.
Enough-Moose-5816@reddit
It’s gonna seem like a million years
AdvanceAlive2103@reddit
We had an escaped hamster get behind our kitchen cupboards a few years ago. The stench was ungodly for about 4 days, then finally started to ease off. Might be longer for your situation as rats are bigger, obviously.
Perhaps send your wife under the floorboards to pull it out and toss out of the window?
DameKumquat@reddit
It should dry out and stop smelling within a week or so.
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