Last week, I opened the door to the basement stairs and was almost knocked down by an awful smell. I slammed the door shut and did not try to open it again till the next day when I asked my neighbour to come and conquer the beast that had to be hiding there. Only problem was that, when he got here, there was no smell…. So I looked like an idiot. He left and I was satisfied that so had the smell…until an hour later when the smell came back. It is a heavy, fishy smell…like that awful glue made from fish..I called my neighbour back and he no longer had any doubts about my sanity. He looked everywhere, inside my boots and hats, behind radiators and inside lamp fixtures, under the stairs, down in the wine cellar, up in the attic…NOTHING!
At first we thought it was a dead animal that only started smelling when the sun was hitting that wall and warming it up…but that theory went out the window when I noticed the smell in the evening, when it was cool. So now my theory is that an animal is living either under my house or inside the walls and urinates about 3 or 4 times a day emitting that stink. The smell is so strong that I doubt it is a squirrel or a chipmunk. It is not a skunk as their odour is unmistakable. Mice don’t smell. So I am left with the possibility of a raccoon…or maybe a fox… We have set a trap but it is too small to catch any of those suspects….I am considering sprinkling moth balls around the house….but that would be fighting fire with fire…do I prefer intermittent urine or permanent naphthalene smells?
AHHH!!! The joys of country living!