Category Archives: Animal in the Wall

Animal in the Wall

The Urine Puddle Mystery

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While I was in the office answering phone calls from all over the U.S., there was a lady that called in. She told me that in every room of her house, there is either a big puddle of urine or a big puddle of dried up urine. I was wondering if she was senile and forgot to wear her diaper at first. Then, I began asking her if she had any pets, or kids. She told me she lived alone. Then I asked her about any cat doors and windows being left open as to where an animal could possibly get in. She told me all windows have been closed and she does not have any cat doors.

She had been hearing noises, noises that sounded as big as a cat or maybe just a little smaller. Jobs like this can be difficult to do if you can’t find any entry ways where the animal could get inside. We have seen in the past where animals get into a crawl space and come up through the heating ventilation system. There could possibly be a leak in the ceiling that she doesn’t know about. Maybe there really is a snarly animal living in her house.

I advised her to try to set up some type of video recording device and place it in the most active areas of the house where the urine puddles seem to keep showing up at. That way she may get some evidence as to what it might be and maybe even find where it is coming and going from. Also, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to call a technician over just to inspect the house to see if there are any possible areas where an animal could get in. It’s better to be safe rather than sorry.

Animal in the Wall

Animal in Wall

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Raccoon (6)

My room is lit by the soft glow of various electronic devices silently charging on the bedside table.  The PC hums in the corner, its little fan whirring occasionally throughout the long hours of the night.  A tiny light blinks behind the television set, telling me I forgot to turn off the sound system before I drifted off to sleep.  It’s a quiet, peaceful room, and there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to sleep, except for the animal in the wall.

I only hear the animal at night, sometimes midnight, sometimes later.  It’s inside the wall in my closet, which is surprising, because I know there’s only a tiny amount of space between the painted drywall and the mirror-covered wall in the adjoining bathroom.  It’s maybe five inches wide, about the length of a smart phone.  For four nights, the soft bumping, scraping, chewing sound coming from my closet has kept me awake, and I’m starting to panic.  In the bright of day, I discovered the tiny hole behind the shelf where I keep my folded sweaters.  I can’t begin to imagine what kind of animal is in the wall, or how it got there, or where it goes during the day, or what it’s going to do once the hole is big enough for it.  How big is big enough?  How large is the animal in the wall?  Why is it coming to my closet?  What’s drawing it in there?

I lie in bed, cocooned by my own body heat trapped in my soft blankets, and my eyes stare at the door to my closet.  I can hear the animal, chewing, moving, its fur scraping the innards of the wall.  It’s industriously working at gaining access to my bedroom, for unknown purposes.  I try to tell myself I’m just being silly.  It’s nothing but a tiny mouse, and I’ll put a trap inside the wall tomorrow.  But, I can’t know for sure it’s a mouse.  What if it’s something bigger?  What if it’s a whole nest of mice just waiting to swarm into my closet, tramping my clothes with their filthy feet?  Then, I imagine sticking my hand inside the hole to set a trap, and I shudder at the thought of an animal lurking inside the wall, waiting for me to place my exposed flesh inside the dark recesses of its lair so it can chomp on me.

I angrily tell myself to shut up, that I’m being a big coward.  I jump up, turn on the lights in my room, grab my cell phone, stride across to the closet and swing the door open, determined to face this creature head on.  There it is, the hole is definitely larger than it was last night.  I slow down, creeping towards the hole, grimacing at the shower of drywall littering my nicely folded sweaters.  Turning on the LED light from my cell, I turn it towards the wound in the wall.  Nothing happens, and I begin to breathe.  Then, a flash of fur, giant eyes, and a show of teeth knock me out of my closet.  My fear propels me out of the bedroom, and slamming the door behind me, I pound into the front room and leap up onto the couch, panting.  I still don’t know what it is, but I’m calling for help tomorrow.  I can’t sleep another night in that room until someone gets rid of that animal in the wall.

Animal in the Wall

How long does a dead animal smell?

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get rid of rats

I consider myself a pretty intelligent person, but I have absolutely no idea how long a dead animal smells.  You might wonder why that would even come up, but unless you’re really into death, there’s really only one reason a person would need to know how long does a dead animal smell.  It’s because there’s a dead animal in my wall.

I’ve been extremely busy lately, finishing up my master’s program.  I’ve got my classes, my school work, my full-time job, and my internship, so I don’t spend a lot of time at home.  Pretty much, I’m just at home to study and sleep, and sometimes I’ll grab something out of the fridge to eat.  Otherwise, I’m at school or at work and eating in the car or with one of my friends in the same masters program.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I walked in the apartment and was knocked over by the most atrocious smell I’d ever had the displeasure of smelling in my short lifetime.  Now, I haven’t noticed anything like rats in the apartment or mouse droppings or anything else, so it took me a while to even consider the fact it might be a dead animal in the wall.  I scoured the apartment that evening, despite my desperate need to get more work done.  I just couldn’t focus on anything other than finding the source of the stench, and wondering how long does a dead animal smell.

I figured a dead animal will smell as it rots, so until it’s completely rotted or desiccated, it will stink up the place.  Of course, this happened in the early spring, which made me grateful for small favors.  What if this had happened in the summer?  Summers can get pretty intense around here, and if you added in humidity, I’m sure the smell would have been even worse.  As it was, it was awful, and I needed to do something fast.

I finally determined the smell was not food rotting in the kitchen or a forgotten sandwich in the bedroom, and that the smell was coming from the living room, which was a sparse room that was hardly ever used.  I noticed there were several flies in that room, too, which had completely ignored the forgotten  bedroom-sandwich and were focused instead on a patch of wall.  Sniffing warily, I convinced myself the smell was stronger there than anywhere else. That’s when I finally realized it must be a dead animal in the wall.

How long does a dead animal smell?  I wasn’t sure how long the smell had been there.  Obviously, it had gotten progressively worse, but I had been too busy, and  wasn’t home enough to notice before that night.

Well, it wasn’t too late to call up a friend and spend the night over there.  In the morning, I’d get the apartment manager to get someone to remove the dead animal out of the wall.  Hopefully, they’d do it fast enough that I wouldn’t have to find out the answer to the burning question, how long does a dead animal smell.

Animal in the Wall

Dead Animal

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“There’s a dead animal in the house.”  The thought hit Lindsey right after the smell did.

She’d struggled into the house, grocery bags draped 5 deep on each arm, purse slipping off her shoulder and one shoe threatening to slip off her foot.  With the talent many women possess, she had managed to get the correct key in the lock and shove the stubborn door open without breaking a single egg.  That’s when the smell hit her full in the face.

It was an odor the family had been gradually noticing.  At first, Lindsey made the rounds through the house, making sure no food was rotting in anyone’s bedroom and emptying every garbage can.  Then, her oldest thought it was a backed-up sewer, since the smell seemed stronger in the little hallway that led to the laundry room and half bath.  She’d asked her ex-husband to take a look at it, and he’d reluctantly come over, but he hadn’t found anything wrong with the sewer pipes.  He’d also suggested, rather grumpily, that she call a professional next time she needed help with the house.  That suited her just fine.

Her teenage daughter had brought a friend home, who had no reservations about expressing herself.  “Ew, your house stinks like garbage!”  Her humiliated daughter ended up going to her friend’s house to study.

Lindsey was frustrated.  The mystery stench was getting stronger and stronger as each day passed, and nearly 2 weeks had gone by.  They’d done spring-cleaning early in an effort to locate the odor’s source.  They’d invested in a simple black-light to see if they could find anything on the carpet or tile.  It was incredibly frustrating.  Lindsey considered herself an excellent homemaker, and was proud of keeping her home tidy and clean.  No matter what she did, though, the smell got more and more overpowering.

Nothing makes you more aware of a stench in the house than entering it after being away for the morning on errands.  Lindsey had been more than happy to have another excuse to leave the house, just to get away from the smell, but dreaded returning home.  When the odor hit her as she struggled inside, the thought had finally come to Lindsey that it must be a dead animal in the home.  What if a wild animal crawled inside the wall to die?  A dead animal would explain that awful stench that just wouldn’t go away.

The thought of crawling around the insides of her house and possibly coming face to face with a rotting raccoon, dead squirrels, or whatever wild animal had died in her house turned her stomach.  No, she decided to take her ex’s advice and call a professional to remove the dead animal.

Animal in the Wall, Mice

Mouse in Wall

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You know you have a mouse in the wall or something else running around inside your home when your dog spends the entire day staring at your wall and sniffing at the baseboards.  Either that, or your dog is just crazy.  But, I have a great dog, and I trust her.

At first, I didn’t notice anything odd.  Life is busy around here.  With three kids, a husband who works over 60 hours a week, and a part-time job, I have to admit I don’t take a lot of time paying attention to how my dog spends her days.  I was hurrying to get breakfast ready the other morning when my youngest said, “Mom, Daisy’s staring at the wall again.”

I was in such a hurry, and there were so many other things going on at the time that I just responded, “Hmmm, mmmm” as I rushed over to the stove to flip the frying eggs.  Unfortunately, I accidentally tipped over the juice container just then, too.  So, it wasn’t until after the eggs were on plates in front of everyone and the juice was cleaned up that my youngest piped up again.

“See, Mom?  Why is Daisy staring at the wall?”

I had no idea what she was talking about and turned to see what my German shepherd was doing.  True enough, she was pacing in front of the wall that separates the kitchen and living room, sniffing at the baseboards and whining every now and then.  Everyone stopped eating breakfast and chatting just to watch this strange behavior.  That’s right when my husband came down the stairs.  We must have been a sight.  His entire family was sitting silently, staring at the dog, who was in turn staring at the wall.  He stood there on the steps before bursting out laughing.

“What’s going on around here?” he laughed.  “We have a ghost or something?”

We all snapped out of it and breakfast resumed, although the talk was about what could possibly cause Daisy to act that way.  My children each told me they had seen Daisy doing this every now and then over the last few days, and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it until someone actually said something to me.

Finally, we all agreed we must have a mouse in the wall.  But, the morning was ticking on and everyone needed to get to school or work, so we finished up and I sent everyone out the door.  I turned to look at Daisy in my kitchen and sighed.  I had about an hour before I needed to be at work, and I knew I had to spend that time making sure we didn’t have a mouse infestation and doing something about the mouse in the wall.

Reluctantly, I opened up the pantry, and started pulling everything out, inspecting it as I did so.  I spotted a couple of tiny mouse droppings, that looked a little bit like grains of dark rice, on the floor, but our food seemed fine.  I mostly keep everything in jars, cans and plastic containers, so there wasn’t much that a mouse could get into.  One cereal box had a small hole chewed in the bottom and I tossed it, thankful that we’d been eating eggs for breakfast this week instead of cereal.  Fortunately, no mouse jumped out at me while I worked.

That job done, I called a rodent removal service to come out and inspect our property and get rid of the mouse in our wall.  I thought having a dog would protect my family from intruders, but apparently my Daisy protects us from mice, as well.  Good dog!

Animal in the Wall

What to do when an animal is inside the wall

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mouse removalIt seems like it starts out of the blue.  Just as you’re drifting off to sleep, you hear a noise in the wall.  Almost as soon as you notice it, it’s quiet again, and you start to wonder if you imagined that little rustling, bumping noise in the wall.  You turn over on your side, and there it is again!  Bumping, scraping, possibly even chewing.  You turn on the light and look around and there is nothing out of the ordinary in your room.  But, if you get very still and listen very hard, the noise in the wall soon starts up again.

Your mind is still exhausted from a day of hard work, and scenes from ghost movies bubble up in your memory.  Quickly, you reject the idea that these noises are paranormal.  Unfortunately, they are all too real, and you’re going to have to do something about it.  But, what do you do when an animal is inside the wall?

Late at night, you don’t want to do anything at all.  You wish you hadn’t heard the noise, and could blissfully and naively let sleep overtake your senses.  Every time your mind starts to drift towards dreams, though, the awful thought of an animal living in your wall, just next to your sleeping head, pokes your consciousness awake.  You know it won’t do any good, but you slap the wall hard, hoping the animal inside the wall will be frightened enough it will leave your house for good.  Before long, the chewing sound is back.

It feels like the animal in the wall is taunting you, saying it knows you won’t do anything right now.  This is now its home.  It can feed, breed, defecate and urinate wherever it pleases.  If it wants to chew on a wall joist, gnaw a hole through the drywall or even nibble on electrical wiring, it will.  You wonder what damage it’s causing.  You wonder if you’re breathing in animal shed hairs or parasites.  You wonder if it’s gotten into your stuff.  Worst of all, you wonder what type of animal is it?

Do you have a solitary snake that’s slithered up through a tiny crack and climbed up the inside of your wall?  Probably not, not with the nibbling sound you’re hearing.  Maybe there is an entire rat nest in the wall, and rats are running rampant all through your home, getting into who knows what.  Maybe it’s even a raccoon in the wall, or baby raccoons in the wall.  Could you possibly have bats in the wall?

Sighing, you know you won’t have much sleep tonight.  You turn on the light and grab whatever electronic device is nearest to do some research on the internet.  Unfortunately, you don’t get many definite answers, just more questions.  The thought of crawling around on the inside of your home, armed with nothing but a flashlight, and coming face to face with some animal in the wall is too horrific to dwell on.  No, there is only one solution.  You get the number for the best pest control or exterminator or animal trapper in your area.  Let a wildlife control specialist go toe to toe or paw to paw with whatever animal is inside your walls.  No more sleepless nights with an animal in the wall and an overactive imagination.