Also, There’s a Dead Possum Under the House
I only know this because the guy came by a couple of weeks ago to do the termite inspection.
Poor guy. When he came back to the door after he was done, he said it smelled really bad under there and asked if I had noticed anything in the house. No, I hadn’t. He said he finally located the source of the smell and it was a dead possum, way up under the middle of the house, and that while he didn’t get too close to it, it appeared to be in the deflationary phase of decomposition – still had the fur but the bloat was gone. He said it would cost at least $75 to remove it and recommended that if I wasn’t smelling it in the house to just leave it there, so I did.
Then I started getting paranoid – what if the thing was really stinking up the house, but I just wasn’t smelling it? Visitors confirmed that there was no dead possum aroma in the house, so apparently no problem.
But there is one weird thing I’ve noticed, and this started a week or so before I knew the possum was there – every day, another fly shows up in the house, and it’s way too cold for them to be coming in from outside. I think what’s going on is that only a few of them are finding their way up, around a plumbing cutout or something, from under the house. Kind of like dead possum ambassadors.
Anyway, here’s to the possum for having the courtesy to not crawl up under the house and die until after it got cold. If this had happened in July, I’m pretty sure I would have known about it without the termite guy having to tell me.
I'M UNDER UR HOUSE DECOMPOSIN IN UR CRAWLSPACE!
3 weird sisters 
Consider yourself lucky!
We had a possum die in the wal once. Believe me you would not be able to not smell it.
Died in the wal, you say? Yes in the wal, a thin wall.
B^4, I can’t imagine how a squirrel could stink up the place in 20 degree weather and I’ve not been smelling the possum. I mean, possums outweigh squirrels by at least 10 X, so there’s more…meat there to make a big stink. There must be some combination under my house of decent ventilation and temps at least low enough for the thing to dessicate or something. Unless there’s a really nasty treat coming my way when things warm up. I kinda doubt it, since just after bloat stage seems to be when things get their stinkiest. BTW, I found a really awesome pic that would be a much better illustration of what’s going on with Mr. Possum down there, but I figured that maggots were out-of-place in a LOLCATS pic.
It’s gone stank when the weather heats up. Lime it now.
To lime it now I’d have to crawl all the way up under the house, in a stinky crawlspace about 2′ high and get up close and personal with it and its inhabitants. Ain’t gonna happen. I just hope that when things warm up it doesn’t stink so bad that I have to use Liquid ASS to deodorize inside the house. If I start to smell it up in here, I WILL be calling the termite company back out and paying the $75 or more it will cost to have it *removed*. It IS possible that Mr. Stinky will have reached a point by the time it really warms up that he’s not capable of inflicting further damage; he was past bloat when the termite guy found him and I had the first flies a week before – that was 3 weeks ago now, so the little feller must’ve already been dead for a week or more by then. At this point we’re 1 month or more post mortem and the insects have been working on him the whole time – even in the cold weather, it stays above freezing under the house and the bacterial action in a decomposing possum generates heat that insects just love when it’s chilly outside – kind of a bug snowbird vacation. Also, as soon as a carcass dries is when it stops stinking. Even in cold weather, most of the moisture associated with the carcass should be evaporated away within a couple of months. So I figure if I make it another 3 – 4 weeks with no stink, I’ll be in the clear, and Mr. Possum can remain entombed in the crawlspace.
This is what pre-teen boys are for. Send in the nephew!
B^4, I can’t imagine how a squirrel could stink up the place in 20 degree weather and I’ve not been smelling the possum.
He was a plump old woodchuck, he was, and he expired under the building before the ground was frozen. His aroma is now gone, thankfully.
Send in the pet jackal!