Ugh. Since mice are small, it shouldn't take too long. Maybe a couple of days? Just a guess. I had a friend who had a raccoon, she thinks, die in a wall. That was disgusting for a very long time. No fun for you no matter what. Hope it is very quick. Try ordering Odors Away from Amazon. Might help. Only takes a few drops for most smells, but this may require more. :-(

In fact, your post made me realize that I should re-order! ha. Thanks. The Gladwyne hardware might even have it (is it still there? Sigh, probably not).
link

Get an odor neutralizer and spray it in the cellar. It would help a bit.

We had one die in our wall it took about a month. Peppermint oil is what we used.

Thanks. I will look for some odor killer Yes, there is still one hardware store in town. At one time there were three! One is now a fancy-dancy hair salon. That;s probably the one you remember, Cyn. The remaining one is across the street next to Odd Fellows Hall.

This smell is awful and the central AC is spreads it throughout the house although keeping the basement door closed helps a lot. A raccoon? I can't even imagine.

I read the title, and wondered what sort of body you had buried in your backyard :) I do remember that a dead mouse can smell for ages, you'll notice it when it gets really humid/damp, even after the odor has seemed to fade away.

Our first Christmas in our house (and we were hosting Xmas Eve). Before Thanksgiving we started noticing an odor coming from the front hall closet. We emptied it out, found nothing but the odor intensified. We figured it died within the walls.

We sprayed Lysol in the small openings by the sliding door tracks, stuffed them with old socks sprayed with Lysol, repeated every day or two, and it got worse though our method helped a lot, and the odor slowly lessened by Xmas Eve. But up until a week before we were ready to move the event! It took at least a month for it to be almost not noticeable.

I had mentioned it to my first friend in the new neighborhood and she laughed and related a similar tale, so I felt reassured that life and Xmas Eve dinner would go on. 12 years later it hasn't happened since.

This has to be one of the best thread titles ever. Or worst.

The title of this thread jumped out and grabbed me by the throat too, because I'm currently engrossed in reading about a serial killer who buried his victims in shallow graves. ::shudder:: -- and ::chuckle::

Yes, we've had this happen, but then we got flies....had to have a guy come & he didn't find the critter in our attic, but used a spray up there. It is such a bad smell. My husband had it happen someplace under the hood in his car & our mechanic found a dead rat. They can cause all sorts of damage to car engines. Same horrible odor....have you tried googling how to help with the odor? Good luck!

Ugh! Hope for a mouse, since the size is certainly a factor in how much odor it can generate & for how long.

Dealing w/ a similar mystery @ work right now. The expression "I smell a rat" keeps repeating in my head. The smell makes me feel like I'm @ a mausoleum or crypt: that whiff of corruption...

I had a dead body in a connected townhouse for a few weeks once. I thought the smell was the old carpet in our bedroom so kept sprinkling carpet fresh around. Then, I started seeing those little flew flies. It was a CBS building (cement and block) but the smell still seeped in. We were newish to the community and later found out that the neighbor had been sort of disowned by his family and had eventually died of cancer. When the family finally came to claim the property and belongings and opened the front door...Omg I will never forget the smell that settled over the whole complex, and this is after the body was taken away. I guess his body had decomposed into the carpet and floor.

In another place we had something dead above the kitchen and it was close to a month before the smell went away. There was no attic access in our section.

JTL, so awful. I hope that if I die at home someone figures it out before I become one with the carpet.

There was a dead rat under the floor of my church. Nobody could find it but it smelled awful and it was in an area where people walked to get in and out. One minute a prayerful face, the next contorted by the aroma of Hell.

Linelle, yes it was awful! The neighbors across the walk were the ones who acted on his absence. I guess they knew of his sickness and hadn't seen him for awhile.

Happens here often. A few days--chances are you are past the worst of it.

When I worked at a hospital, our dept. was moved into a newly built addition. There was a horrible smell. We complained repeatedly and they sent the grouchy old guy* from maintenance, a smoker, and he said he didn't smell anything. It wasn't until a physician came in to sign a death certificate and he said that is the smell of decomposing flesh. We said they won't believe us. He called Administration and said you must do something about this. They sent more maintenance guys who dug holes in the walls to locate a dead squirrel.

*Another time, grouchy old guy threatened to break off the fingers of anyone who touched the thermostat. He was a quality co-worker, that's for sure.

Sorry, dedtired, no helpful advice from me but thanks for the walk down bad memory lane. I don't miss working there, that's for sure.

All this talk of decomposing bodies reminded me of an episode of The Moth. Listen if you dare. It makes our stories seem trivial. The Drip

PS my basement really stinks. I hope and pray it is a mouse and it turns to dust rather quickly.

Oh boy - this is really a gross thread. My only experience with decomposing bodies was with rodents who setup housekeeping in the insulation of a stove at a seasonal lake house. Twice - once at a friend's cabin and once at DH's family place. One party pulled the insulation out and replaced, one party threw the stove out entirely. I know what I would do.

A few months ago, we had dead mouse smell in my kitchen. It was awful and I could't face the idea of smelling that in our kitchen for weeks. I got on my hands and knees and smelled the whole length of the wall and guessed where the worst smell was. I cut a small fist sized hole in the wall behind the baseboard and lo and behold, there was the dead mouse body.

My husband was amazed that I found the exact wall cavity it was in.

When I first saw the thread title, I thought of the Body Farm!

We only had one experience and we were able to fix it. Seemed cat had brought a dying mouse into the house which crawled off into the wood stack by the wood stove to die. For days we would get an occasional whiff and ignore it until we both said to each other, are you smelling something dead? So like bassett hounds we're on all fours crawling around until we manage to isolate the source. Undid the wood and found the remains. At least it was fairly easy to get to and clean up.

But at that, even exposed to the air, the smell wasn't as strong as you suggest. You may have something larger decomposing which would take longer. If the smell is worse with the AC on, could it be something died in one of the ducts?

Didn't John Wayne Gacy spread lime on the bodies he buried in his basement to keep the smell down? Sorry to get grizzly, but I think that works, but it has to be applied to the body.

There are professionals that will help too if it gets too bad.

Then there was my neighbor's son, who was parking his car in the space next to mine. It started to smell a bit. Then more. It was Texas summer. It was horrible! He cleaned out the car thinking it was a lunch or something he'd left. It became unbearable! Finally after almost two weeks he opened the trunk and found . . . The bait left from his fishing trip!

Too long! We had a chipmunk in the wall of the basement bathroom and it took more than a month. We had a mouse under the bed (thanks to the cats) and we found it after 2 days of stink and the bedroom smelled for a week afterwards.

This thread is fascinating and nauseating! In our old house a mouse or something died in the wall of the breakfast room. It was the most horrible smell and seemed to take months to dissipate.

Laughing at the thought of you sniffing around your houses to locate smelly deceased rodents.

BP, it took him two weeks to be curious enough to look for the smell? Bait smells bad even when it is fresh.

Years ago when the kids were young we went away for a day in the summer. When we returned and opened the back door we were nearly knocked back outside by the stench. One of the hamsters had crawled behind the fridge and died. The heat of fridge motor had accelerated the bloating / stinking process and then the fan had blown the smell all though the kitchen. At least we could pull out the fridge and dispose of it, but it was a godawful .

Haven't stuck my nose in the basement yet this morning. My laundry is down there so I will have to face it. There is a small space near the ceiling that opens to the front foundation. Hard to explain but I am pretty sure the occasional mouse comes in through there. In fact I stored some DeCon on a nearby shelf and I guess it attracted some mice since I found the box had been gnawed. It was as if the mice had committed suicide.

Yes, the Body Farm!

Thank goodness we have not had to deal with this. But I agree, one of the craziest thread titles ever!

Haha! I am very near the body farm and have met Dr. Bass.

What a coincidence that yesterday a friend of mine took her car to be worked on because of her AC. When on, the air was nice and cold, but there was an awful sound (rattle/hiss) and the smell was terrible. Somehow a rat/mouse had gotten up in her car into the AC. Ugh!

Just googled The Body Farm. Who would ever think such a thing existed? Yuck. I would hate to live downwind of that place.

A story about cadaver dogs just popped up on FB feed. Maybe that's what I need to locate the source. Those dogs are pretty amazing. Four young men that were recently murdered in Bucks County by some local lunatic. Their bodies were located by cadaver dogs in a twelve foot deep grave. Astounding.

I was attracted to this by the title. Unfortunately almost everyone has given a time line for a small body. I'll stay tuned. Must check out John Wayne Gacey.

Dedtired, I saw that on the national news. Awful! The Body Farm is a great teaching tool. It's mentioned in some of Patricia Cornwell's books. Dr. Bass is a forensic scientist/anthropologist. He used to teach a class at the university, but he may have retired by now.

It smells a lot better around here this morning. Seems to be dissipating, thank heavens. I was afraid this was going to go one for weeks. It's almost safe to breathe.

dedtired....you might becoming "nose blind". Have a friend come over and see what the verdict is.

Maybe, but if I leave the house for awhile and come back in, I don't notice it. I definitely could smell it before today. I'll notice if my next guest keels over from the stench!

The problem is that mice do not usually wander alone in the wilderness before they decide to croak in an abode, there are usually other mice around. It might be a good idea to check out the house/basement to see for sure either how they are getting in, or see if they are already in and have set up a little colony somewhere in the house.

When I was a child, I had a mouse die in my vanity drawer. I don't remember why, but I was sure I would get in trouble, so I didn't say anything. It stunk for a while, then went away. For the rest of the time we lived there, I was afraid to open that drawer. After quite a few years, it was time to move. I was older and more brave, and I opened that drawer. Yep, there was a tiny little skeleton in that drawer.

*shudder, even now*

Aok, how funny, at least now it is. I think I know where they get in. I usually only see one per year when the weather gets cold. I will have to stuff that area with steel wool. Little stinkers -- literally!

I'm glad the odor seems to be gone from your basement. What a nasty smell from those little bodies.

DD is trying to win the mouse battle in her Philly rowhome. She found small openings under the sink around the water pipes and pulled the stove away from the wall and found chewed insulation and droppings. She crammed steel wool in all the holes and put out bait stations. But living in a row home in the city means that it's an ongoing situation. It would make me nuts but she's somewhat used to it by now.

Maire, I lived in an apartment that was the first floor of an old Victorian House at 48th and Baltimore many (many) years ago. I wish that mice had been our only problem. We had water bugs, which I think was a nicer name for roaches. So revolting. I think the rodents and bugs have us greatly outnumbered and will always prevail in the end!

Dedtired - that just brought back memories of my first apartment in NE Philly across the street from Pennypack Park. I had never seen a roach in my life and one night I went into the kitchen and flipped on the light to see 3 of them crawling across the kitchen floor. Disgusting.

When I went into work the next morning and told my co-workers they just laughed and said "welcome to Philly". One of the other librarians told me she bought a gecko to eat her roaches.

Before I moved to Philly DH spent his first year of med school in an old apartment building at 48th and Spruce. That's when I first heard about roaches but naively thought they were only in old parts of the city. It could have been worse- when we were vising my brother in South Carolina we saw movement in the grass and I assumed it was a snake. But as we got closer it was a Palmetto bug - a huge cockroach - about 2" long - and they can fly. Yuck

Hopefully soon there will be little bots that can go in and remove animals from small spaces. Very sad when people pass away unnoticed in their homes.

Smell is gone except for the tiniest whiff. A bot to remove what's left would be nice.

Maire, I never saw so many mice as when I worked for FLP at the central branch. Someone left a box of pastries out over night and it was nearly demolished by morning. Maintenance people put out those sticky traps which were horrifying. My office was on the top floor by the Skyline Room. I hear it is all gussied up now. I bet the mice are still there!

Oh dear, Kitty. Dying alone at home with no one finding you is sad, however I did giggle a little because my first thought reading your last sentence was, "well, good thing ded didn't have one of those decaying in her home!" Disclaimer: I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock's tv show and I guess a bit of his sardonic humor rubbed off on me.

So how long does it take to decompose. My apartment doesn't smell but I cant live in there cause I get nauseous and I just had a mouse infestation that I had to remove with poison bait from a professional... been a month now maybe since I've seen the last mouse

How odd to see this bumped back up. I think I smell a spammer.

Well, it is probably my favorite thread title ever for an actual, serious issue, so I don't mind the grin it brought me.

That does not smell like spam....I bet it was a search, and he didn’t look at the date....