What the Smell?

What do you do when your house smells like poo? For a couple of weeks our house has had a faint, stinky smell. Not the knock you down good Lord what died in there did your father go to the bathroom can we get a courtesy spray of Glade kind of smell. More of a musty wet can’t quite put my finger on it what IS that smell. It definitely has a robust bouquet and a poo piquant aftertaste. The first thing we did was blame the dog. Isn’t that what everybody does when there’s a stink in the house? Our poor pooch gets blamed for everything from rotten produce left in the crisper too long to every poot expelled where two or more Hula-gen’s are gathered. He’s an easy scapegoat, especially for that flatulence thing, because no one can prove it WASN’T him. Naturally, he was the first source we looked to for this particular smell.

I’ve always tried hard to keep our house from smelling like a dog, but I figured we’ve had a dog long enough that it was bound to happen sometime. The scent seemed strong in the areas where Jack lays every day. This theory earned poor Jack a trip to the groomer for a good scrubbing and haircut and a visit to the vet for that lovely maintenance procedure called “anal gland expression” or as we like to call it “poppin’ the poop glands”. I’m sorry, were you eating breakfast? Well, that didn’t change a thing. I cleaned out the refrigerator. Nothing in there aside from a soggy cucumber and some leftover pasta with marinara cream sauce. “Are you sure it’s not the dog,” I asked. He got a squirt of doggie perfume. We decided that perhaps the area rugs needed cleaning. We doused the rugs in that fragrance in the vacuum cleaner stuff and looked up the number for the Rug Doctor but didn’t call because we weren’t convinced the smell was coming from the rugs, and I’m not paying out the wazoo for rug cleaning unless I’m absolutely sure they need it. Jack got another squirt of perfume. I checked the dishwasher for sour water. Nothing there. “Are you SURE it’s not the dog,” I asked. Jack got his ears cleaned and his bedding washed, much to his annoyance. He hates it when his peeps mess with his bedding. He’s pretty attached to it. See? We were starting to panic when Teen Angel made a breakthrough Sunday and realized she only smelled the stench whenever the heat came on. Aha! It must be in the heating and air system, we thought. We called the heating and air company, and while their guy suspected algae in the drip pan, it was dry as a bone. Nothing, nada, zip. He searched for an hour and a half and found nothing. Back to square one.

Hubby crawled under the house (only because the snakes are probably in hibernation) and searched at length today and found no moisture, no water leaks, no dead animals. Nothing. But still. It smells. He called his plumber friend who suggested a backup of sewer gasses, so now we’re waiting on the sewer folks to come check us. For gas.

In the meantime, we’ve taken to avoiding company. No one is invited inside until we figure this out. Sorry neighbors. Sorry band kids selling fruit. Sorry Mama J.. Everybody is banished to the front porch until we figure out why it smells in our house. And if somebody slips in on us, well, I’ll just have to blame it on the dog. Sorry Jack.