Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Body Odour

An instantly identifiable smell permeates my office.

It swells and fades throughout the day, and is proving difficult to pinpoint. That hasn't stopped me dragging everything out of every corner in my search for the source.

It is the smell of decaying rodent. That awful dead mouse smell that nothing can mask. Unfortunately it is very rare to find the actual body, having gone through this process many times in different rooms of the house. If the unfortunate animal has died under the floorboards or in a wall cavity, we're stuck with it until nature takes its course. My pest control chap has a supply of "rodent deodorant" for these situations, but, frankly, it's so pungent it's a close call as to which smell is harder to live with.

Given the overpowering stench one tiny dead mouse can produce, it does make me wonder how killers manage to hide bodies under floorboards without detection. I have spent the day sitting as close to the open window as possible, apologising to my volunteers for the terrible smell and recommending they eat their sandwiches outside today.

7 comments:

Barry Lawrence said...

This is going to come as an awful shock to you but..............Let's just say Boots sell a range of them and if you use them "the dead rat" will go away.

tea and cake said...

Hello again!

Just wanted to let you know that I've tagged you, re: gardening, over on my blog!

R said...

Ohhh...there are few smells worse than dead rodent. I am an admitted odor freak and as a child could predict when a cow was about to calve (100% accuracy within three days) and could also identify dead creatures by smell. Since I moved to the city I have been somewhat out of practice, but can generally guess whether the creature was herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore.

Leena said...

Ew.

Wouldn't a dog find the rodent, though? After all, they can even detect mould...

West said...

Shouldn't that be 'de-roderant', D???

L.U.V. on ya,

Bob

Doris said...

Reg - whatever are you implying?

Tea and Cake - ooh, interesting. Gardening eh? Blimey.

Rusty - it's a "once smelt never forgotten" kind of odour, that's for sure! And what a talented nose you have.

Hello Leena - my dog would only find it if it meant he could roll in it. I am quite pleased it appears to be inaccessible.

Bob - *groan* :D

Anonymous said...

My younger twins once built a deceased pet mouse into a small lego house (she "hadn't gone to heaven yet and needed somewhere to live")...took us ages to track down the smell that time...