I was at my sisters house Saturday and it stink stank stunk.
Horribly.
She knew it. It was coming from the basement, but couldn’t find the source. In her need to expunge the smell, she decided tossing a handful of mothballs down the stairs would “help”.
Nope. When I walked into the house it was like walking into wall of mothballs with an underlying decaying smell.
My brother in law wouldn’t go down to find out what was causing the smell as he despises the smell of mothballs. Note: If he would have gone down there THURSDAY when my sister mentioned something was dead down there… but he had to hold down the Barcolounger.
Finally, last night braved the basement only to find out the chest freezer full of venison, cow, turkey… was dead.
The freezer is now in the garage, rotted meat in the trash. But the basement still reeks. How do they get rid of the stench? It’s a “normal” basement - poured concrete floors, brick walls.
After Hurricane Katrina, there were a lot of dead freezers and refrigerators lying around in New Orleans. Somebody spray-painted one of them with the words “WARNING: BREATH OF SATAN INSIDE”.
When I was a kid, some vandals broke into our home while we were on vacation and unplugged our refrigerator/freezer. (I’m not fully clear on the details; I was about 7 at the time.) After emptying and cleaning them, I remember having ozone generators in both compartments to try and get rid of the smell. I also remember a massive coughing/wheezing spell when I was walking past them once.
I think we decided the smell was localized and hadn’t spread to the room. If it’s in the pores of the brick, that might change the situation. And maybe the state of the art in odor elimination has advanced in the last 35 years. But you might look into it, Missy.
Come to think of it, my mother still has that fridge.
