Marduke Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 So, I was at work today and I was really looking forward to coming home to work on my z. The body work is almost done and I'm looking forward to paint. Anyway, my wife calls me around noonish and says she went to do some laundry in the garage and something smelled funny. Okay, well my wife often empties the trash in the kitchen and leaves the bag in the garage instead of walking the extra 5 feet to the outside door that leads to the side of the house and our trash cans. It's her way of reminding me that I am neglecting my manly trash duties. "Did you leave a bag of trash in the garage?", I ask. "No". Huh? Well I don't know then. 3 hours later she calls me back and tells me it really stinks in there. WTF? Now my wife and I aren't massively anal neat freaks, but we are CLEAN people so I can't for the life of me figure out what would smell that bad. Well, long story short. SomeTHING (I assume rodent in nature but it would have to be fairly large considering the amount of stank) got into my garage and decided to die there. I got home and immediately went out to the garage and was assaulted by the sickly retching vomitous smell of death that has been slowly cooking in my garage for many hours in 90+ degree heat. I'm not squeamish but man that smells bad. I grab the fabreeze and liberally spray while I use a flashlight to inspect all my nooks and crannies. Nothing!!! I can't find a damn thing! I just spent an hour in that stench and I can still taste it. UUUUGHHH!!! Please feel free to laugh at my misfortune, if it weren't my garage it would be funny. Anyone know how long it takes for a corpse to decompose enough not to stink anymore? I've looked everywhere!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoNkEyT88 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Its usually in the last place you look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dayz Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Don't forget to take a picture, I want to see were it was. Hopefully not in the Z anywhere! Dayz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
280Zone Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 The smell should die down after the maggots consume the edible parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 There are two squirrles in my garage, at first it was one to whom we gave the name "Soffit", as that's where we presumed he came through. Then a friend came. I squirted WD40 into a corner where he usually goes when he wasn't there, so that he wouldn't sit up there. To my luck he brings a friend. I would leave some tasty coolant up there but frankly, they don't bother anyone... probably kill mice, and they never hurt no body. I think moth balls are gonna have to do this time. Thankfully I don't leave food in the garage so that they can have a stab at it. That would bring them down to ground-zero, and then from there it's coolant fest and acidic RTV silicone to munch on as a Last Supper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi303 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 borrow someones doggie, it'll go investigate that intriguing smell, and show you where it is. I's worked for me finding a dead possum in the tractor shed, just bring one of the farm dogs up and set it to work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK-Z Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 I have squirrels living in the pine trees in my yard. I didn't drive my jeep for like 4 months, because of I was oversees. When i first start the jeep up, I heard this crunching noise. When i opened my hood, there were pine cones in all the tight nooks and crannies. I had a good laugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeeboost Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Don't forget to take a picture, I want to see were it was. Hopefully not in the Z anywhere!Dayz That happened to me just last week. Ever since I picked up my last Z (the 1976 in my sig) a couple of months ago, the interior reeked of cat piss, so I assumed it was just in the carpet, which was being replaced anyways. Wrong. While stripping the interior, I removed the passenger seat to find the skeletal remains of a mouse underneath its pile of aged hair. He made a nest out of seat cushioning from the bottom seat and stuffed it underneath the raised area that the rear of the seat bolts to. He was stuck to the car, so I had to get a stick to pry him off and throw him away...I'll admit, I got a little squeamish in the midst of handling this rodent. So, check your freakin' cars too, because you never know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EMWHYR0HEN Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 borrow someones doggie, it'll go investigate that intriguing smell, and show you where it is. I's worked for me finding a dead possum in the tractor shed, just bring one of the farm dogs up and set it to work. Agreed. Nothing like the fresh smell of DEATH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonfly Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Walk around and look for a trail of ants... they like the maggots are part of natures corpse cleanup crew. Of course the dog idea will certainly work as long as there is a dog somewhere for you to use. Dragonfly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zedman240 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 As for the "how long does it take for the smell to go", in my warehouse where I work, I found a bird that must have flown in and got trapped inside the warehouse, sat under a rack, starved and died. Looks like its been there a few years but has no smell at all. If I were you I'd look for the rotting corpse unless you want to wait a few years.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 hey you think a dry bird on a rack is odd... I was doing brakes for a friend and took his hub-cap off his sentra, and a flattened baby mouse/rat slid out of one of the "spokes" on the hub-cap. And to top it off, we have a friend who's devastated about dead animals and stuff like that, so we slipped it under his grand-am's driver door-handle. Nothing like opening you door and finding a paper-thin dead rat in your hand. I think that little guy got spun around so many times that he just started to flatten out from all the high-speed. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdsk8ter Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Its usually in the last place you look. I dont know about you but everything is always in the last place i look why keep looking once you find it lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSflyer Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Marduke.....You aren't missing a mother-in-law are you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dat260 Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Its probably between the walls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strotter Posted October 17, 2008 Share Posted October 17, 2008 Its probably between the walls. Yeah, what he said. I had an Opossum leave five or six babies to die in the wall of my laundry room. This was a year ago July. The first hint was an armada of big old Blue Bottle flies, followed by the truly indescribable smell - it was like walking into a wall of stink, or being submerged in a fluid. She had taken a very circuitous route to that particular corner. I ended up having to remove the drywall to get to the poor things, which by then were a puddle of fur, innards, and maggots. I proved my manliness that day, for sure. Next time arson, for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted October 18, 2008 Share Posted October 18, 2008 Dead Bird Story: I worked up in Oregon at a Pulp Mill on a 1000 hp compressor. The ONLY time it's shut down is this annual maintenance. I recall it was raining when we did the work one year... Next year I return, and there are inlet restrictions that weren't there before. Obviously something is plugging the inlet. I get on a ladder and see pulpy paper covering most of the inlet screen. So I start peeling it off. What was underneath was particularly sad. Apparently when we started the compressor the previous year, the birds sitting on the ledge of the inlet air opening flew off. But it started raining so they went back to sitting on the ledge, content in knowing the large whining noise was doing nobody any harm. But at that moment, I must have loaded the machine, and half a dozen pigeons were sucked fast to the screen! There they were, alive, 'spread pigeon' as it were, against the inlet screen unable to free themselves against the suction. The unit operated 8000 hours till next maintenance interval and by then they had been paiper-meche covered into an anonomyous blob of 'pulp fibers'. They obviously died of starvation from the looks of them, and then the constant flow of air over them desiccated them without any chance of decomposition. Pigeon Jerky as I remarked at the time. Second Dead Bird Incident: ILM in L.A., titanium foundry. Another 1000HP compressor. Myself and a senoir technican were complete on the overhaul ready to have the sound enclosure installed for a test run. Big Suits from back east were at the plant, and 'wanted to see the machine run before their flight departed'. We advised that it would be the afternoon as the filter/sound enclosure was not in place. The Biggest Suit said 'it's a foundry, we don't care about the noise, just run the damn thing!' We went on to explain the filter function, and they would have nothing of it, 'nothing's going to get sucked in, the inlet is 3m off the cround!' O.K. Mr. VP of Operations, you just sign this liability waiver and we'll fire it off under the recognition that any dammage is your company's responsibility. Hey, it was only maybe $163K for the overhaul anyway... We fire the thing off, and it's LOUD. First time it unloads a superhot jet (say just under 270C) of air of fairly large quantity blows back through the inlet as a function of the unloading process. This warms the fannies of about two dozen pigeons sitting on a rafter well above the machine. They start flying around inside the building... Myself and the senior guy watch, while I'm thinking 'don't fly in the inlet, don't fly in the inlet...' Well, nothing gets closer than 2m from the top of the machine...there is this one straggler, coming in on a slow glide-path...all relaxed and showing off for all his Pigeon Buddies who have relanded on the same rafter ('bird brain' was clear to me then...) and as he's floating aloft, the inlet of the machine starts to open as it reloads... Like something out of a Warner Brothers Cartoon, that pigeon, 2m above the inlet had his wings pinned back, lost some feathers, and was SUCKED into the whirring Lysholm Screws turning at 14,400 rpms with a hot operational clearance of 0.0015". The whine was WeeeeeeEEeeeee and the compressor went on a-runnin'! I looked at Big Suit, VP of Operations, and said: "Well, you just added two days of cleanout to your bill! Hope you are satisfied with the test run, can we shut it down now?" Had to pull the discharge elbow off and use a hose to remove the remnants of Pigeon Gore from the intercooler bundles. They are SO lucky that the thing 'compressed' and passed through. Had it been a smaller unit, like a 350 or 500HP model, chances are good they would have slipped time on their rotors and eaten them up to a tune of $45K! And while we're on dead things smelling, when I lived in the tropics... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavyZ Posted October 18, 2008 Share Posted October 18, 2008 My favorite sentences in this thread so far: They obviously died of starvation from the looks of them, and then the constant flow of air over them desiccated them without any chance of decomposition. Pigeon Jerky as I remarked at the time. The first hint was an armada of big old Blue Bottle flies, followed by the truly indescribable smell - it was like walking into a wall of stink, or being submerged in a fluid. She had taken a very circuitous route to that particular corner. I ended up having to remove the drywall to get to the poor things, which by then were a puddle of fur, innards, and maggots. I proved my manliness that day, for sure. ...You aren't missing a mother-in-law are you? The smell should die down after the maggots consume the edible parts. Nothing like the fresh smell of DEATH! I just spent an hour in that stench and I can still taste it. UUUUGHHH!!! Some of these quotes are not only brilliant, but they border on sheer poetry and local color. I'll just pull out this list to laugh at whenever I'm feeling low Davy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norstar Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 (edited) That "stinks": Edited February 9, 2016 by norstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaspendlove Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 update? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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