Case walk-throughs of hidden animal odor problems
Every case below is made up. None describes a real household, building or result. Each one follows a common pattern, such as a bird stuck in a duct or a squirrel sealed inside an attic, so you can see the order decisions tend to come in and the spots where people lose time, money or patience.
Every example here is illustrative, built from common situations. None is a real job, customer or address.
- Hypothetical: A Bird Near a Bath Exhaust This hypothetical case follows a household whose upstairs bathroom smells worse each time the fan is switched on, and how the source turned out to be a bird that nested in the duct.
- Illustrative Case: Odor Behind a Shared Wall In this illustrative case, two attached townhome owners smell decay at a party wall. They narrow it to one stud bay and agree to open the side where the repair is easiest.
- Hypothetical: Odor Noted Near a Crawlspace In this hypothetical case, a homeowner smells decay through the floor vents of a small postwar house, and the source turns out to be a rat that died on the crawl space soil.
- Illustrative Case: An Attic Odor and Insulation In this illustrative case, a homeowner finds a yellow-brown stain on a bedroom ceiling and a smell that gets worse on hot days. The source is a squirrel in the attic insulation directly above.
- Hypothetical: Odor Near a Fireplace Flue This hypothetical case follows a household that notices a decay smell at a closed fireplace and works out that a squirrel fell into the uncapped chimney.
- Illustrative Case: Odor Across a Condo Boundary This illustrative case follows two residents of a newer condo building near Sloan's Lake who smell the same decay odor from different sides of a wall, and how the HOA worked it out.