This post was most recently updated on May 18th, 2015
Late last spring my oldest was taking some things out of our family SUV when the back glass simply shattered. He was very upset when he came back in the house, claiming that he hadn’t slammed it shut or done anything to break the window – it had just broken all on its own. And as I had been watching him through the kitchen window, I believed him. Nevertheless, we had to have the glass replaced and I knew that was not going to be cheap. I called around, determined that it would be financial folly to turn it in to our insurance and found a place in the city that would charge between $300 and $400 to replace the window. Unfortunately, due to a rather devastating hail storm a few weeks prior, all the mobile replacement appointments (when they come to your location and do the repair) were booked and we would only be able to get it fixed if we drove the hundred miles or so to the city. I went ahead and made an appointment for the next week because we had the money in our account and I knew that wouldn’t last long. But on the day we were to drive all that way with just a plastic sheet duct taped over the hole where the back glass used to be … it was pouring rain and we had to cancel. And sure enough, the money I had set aside to pay for the window disappeared within two weeks because it was right about the time my husband developed that nerve thing-y and was off work for the next 8 weeks. Soooo …
While we were waiting to get enough cash to get the SUV fixed, we parked it in the big hay shed where it would be out of any weather. It sat out there for a few months and hubby checked it often, making sure the window was still sealed up and that it wasn’t suffering any disrepair. We were finally able to schedule a mobile appointment in a town about 45 miles away (a huge improvement over the hundred mile city trek) and got the window fixed without further incident. But …
On our next family outing, we happily piled into the family truckster, fired it up and … whooooo-eeeee! A foul, fetid, funky smell filled the car. The kind of smell that says, “Hey, something has died somewhere in your car and you may never get the stench out.” Oh, it was just awful. And the situation was helped so much by 3 kids gagging and squealing about the gross smell. The next day, hubby endeavored to find the source of the smell … I made the suggestion that, perhaps, we should turn the Trophy Dachshund loose in the car and let her locate the dead thing. I mean, if there’s a mouse in the house, she’s the first to alert us. And if a piece of food drops in between the stove and the cabinet, she goes crazy until someone finds it. So he took the pup out, put her in the car and let her do her thing. Which she did. She easily pinpointed the delightful summer home of a packrat stuffed with straw and lint, (and the recently deceased rat, of course) right behind the glove box. Yay. Rat’s nest removed, problem solved – right? Wrong. A few days later, an unseasonable cold front moved in and I had to take the SUV to a neighbor’s house to take care of her horses. The girls and I loaded up and started off. I turned on the heater to silence the two shivering Sissies and … Oh, Lordy! … the smell was still there! Gag! I turned OFF the heater and cracked the window to aerate the cab. The girls and I shivered and suffered all the way down and back, but at least the smell wasn’t making anyone sick. I relayed the bad news to my husband and his response was that if the smell didn’t go away in a short while, we would have to sell the car. Ugh.
After a few more days, the smell was still there and I decided to try absorbing the odor. We had some old coffee beans that were not going to be used so we made small pomanders with some old panty hose and put them in several locations around the car. But when we started it up and turned on the heater, hubby noticed the smell was not coming from the front of the car where the original deadness had occurred. No, this smell was coming out of the roof vents in the back. Uh oh. We determined, through a series of processes involving a flashlight, the dental mirror from my daughter’s brace cleaning kit and sniffing at key areas around the car – that the smell was indeed coming from the air ducts … somewhere between the blower motor in the rear and the second row of seats. The next day, he and our son took the SUV down to the township equipment building. He’s the township trustee, you see, and the shop has a pretty serious shop vacuum that he planned to stick up into the vents and try to suck whatever was up there … out. They were gone for hours. And when I finally called to see how things were going, I was told “I can’t talk now, I’ve got to start putting this thing back together.” Back together?? Good Lord! What did they have to do to my car?? When they finally arrived home, I was informed that they had indeed located the deadness … another mouse nest, decomposing mama mouse and her baby, with maggots (I know, so very, very gross). But it was removed … along with all the interior panels, I understand … to the satisfaction of both. I was also told that neither male was able to detect the aroma on the drive back.
Now, I haven’t been anywhere in the car since then, so it hasn’t technically passed my smell test. And since the youngest sissy is suffering from a cold and we won’t all be going into town tomorrow like I had planned, we won’t be taking the SUV. But one day soon, I will have occasion to ride in Big Blue and I swear that if there is even a whiff of something dead or decaying or musky or icky … well, I guess I’ll continue to try to figure out what’s causing it because we can’t afford to buy a new family vehicle.
