Every time it rains the smell from under my stoop is disgusting, like something has crawled in there and died. My dog seems to think there is something living in there, but has never found it.
The stoop was built in 1920 - a brownstone in Brooklyn, NY. No obvious modifications, and just a plastic sheet on the ground.
What’s the smell coming from and how do I get rid of it?
Sometimes a rotting corpse smell can come from bacteria living in the soil. Assuming that no one is buried under your porch, a good fungicide might help.
Oooh. This past fall there was a little stand of trees that I walked past on the way to the grocery store. (It’s gone now because of housing being built.)
Anyways… they were all little conifers, and the ground under them was all mulchy and pine-needly. Starting in late September I couldn’t walk past there without gagging, because it smelled like something dead was rotting.
Finally towards the end of October the smell was almost gone, and I worked up the nerve to go see what was in there. I expected to find a dead dog or a deer or something. All I found were some really ugly mushrooms with slimy bulbous tops, and flies crawling around on top of them. I’m pretty sure that’s what the smell was coming from.