Friday, October 03, 2008

and I smell some pretty stinky diapers, but this doesn't even compare

Something crawled into my car and died there.

I've cleaned the car two different times, including emptying the car of EVERYTHING this last time and scouring under every seat, in every crevice, and even crawling around sniffing each seat, seat belt, and rug to locate the impossibly disgusting stench that has permeated every surface.

I cleaned the car of every last shred of toy, clothing, paper, and food, and even removed the car seat to ensure that some noxious food hadn't fallen underneath or behind it. Then I sprayed the whole car with Febreeze and hung up a lovely pumpkin spice scented air freshener. This morning, I got in the car, and it smelled like rotting pumpkin flesh with perhaps a dead rodent inside. It was awful. Truly, truly disgusting.

What do I do? I searched the whole car already, I don't think the smell is coming from inside the automobile. Is it possible for an animal to have crawled inside the engine and died in there? Would it smell inside the car? What should I do? Being pregnant just makes the whole thing worse. Today I drove through the rain, gagging, with the windows rolled down because I couldn't tolerate breathing the car's air. Help!

7 comments:

Chatty Cricket said...

Oh I would bring it to be professionally cleaned- like, detailed. A friend had MICE in her car thanks to crumbs from the kiddos. This is gross, but have you taken Gabe's carseat out to check under there?

divrchk said...

Something could have crawled up from the outside of the car and died. I think it happened to my mom when I was little.

Christy said...

Hi - I think I ended up reading your blog from "babes in blogland", you had Gabe around the same time I had my son, Carson.

Anyways, a couple of years ago my roommate at the time had a similar horrible smell and we finally opened the hood and there was a dead squirrel in there! (I just sent her an email reminding her of this, I had forgotten completely about it until I read your post).

Congrats on the new baby on the way!

Montreal Mama said...

Maybe take the car into the car wash for a complete shampooing?

I just heard a story of a couple who had reno's done to their kitchen. They went to stay at their inlaws for the time.... Anyhow, meanwhile the month it took, they had forgotten to empty the diaper champ before they left. Apparently the workers will never come back to do any other rooms in their house.... it was that bad.... Four weeks of fermenting dirty diapers. Uck!

So I'm all caught up on your blog. You should come stop by mine sometime (I have no idea if you're still reading my blog or not).

Hope all is well with you, and I plan to stay on top of your current/recent posts from now on!

Rev Dr Mom said...

Call the Car Talk guys....

Seriously I hope you find what's stinking.

Anonymous said...

check under the hood, hoses, tailpipe, wheel wells. probably a dead rodent.

a/k/a Nadine said...

Animals like to crawl up into the engine when it's still warm, especially if it's cool outside. Definitely check there (or have someone else do it).