1 stinky house for trade!

When I woke up this morning, I thought I smelled a strange smell. However, I was in a half-asleep stage as I stumbled out of bed and once I got in the shower and got dressed, I didn't really notice anything so I thought I must have been having some weird dream where I actually had a sense of smell in my dream. Well... when I walked into the house this afternoon, I thought I was going to die. Other than the "thinking I was going to die" part of this story, no other parts are exaggerations. So, I walk into the house and the ENTIRE house had the sharpest, awefullest, sickeningest smell ever! I checked all the "natural" spots you would check to find where a bad smell was coming from and I am NOT kidding when I say that when I stuck my head down to the trash cans and things like that, it was actually a relief to breathe in those smells rather than what I was breathing in walking around the house! I immediately called Kevin (because of him being a bad odor specialist of course) and said, "Something is bad wrong!" I couldn't find anything but I quickly realized it HAD to be something dead. I grabbed up bubbles for Kaelyn and a book for myself and we headed outside. I blew the bubbles for her all of 2 minutes and 17 seconds before the noseums started biting us so badly that I thought about going back into the house - for 2 seconds - and then realized there was no way I could handle it. So, the natural thing to do was to call my bad odor specialist again. I informed him that we were going to be somewhere outside around on campus running away from the noseums and the evil smell. If you have a mental picture of Kaelyn and I running away from our house as fast as we can with a swarm of bugs and green smoke curling after us, you have it about right! Kevin assured me that he would come right home and take care of it. Well, we found ourselves at the campus playground, which was just fine with Kaelyn. Once she started moving around, the bugs left her alone. I, however, was trying to sit and watch Kaelyn and so I was just an easy target for them. (If you live in Fl. you know exactly what I'm talking about.) Actually though, the noseums were just a minor inconvenience in this story. After I had swatted, walked around, and scratched about as much as I could stand, we left the playground and came back home. Kevin had opened the main windows but it was still just about as bad as before. My "dead animal theory" was right. Apparently, something had gotten up under the house and then died. However, Kevin and Rod didn't think there was really any possible way to find where the ---ummm--- "remains" were so we were left with the sad fact that we were just going to have to combat the smell. Kevin ran to Winn-Dixie to get some stuff while I got Kaelyn and myself around to go to Stuart once Kevin got back. I try to be a positive person so - you know how once you're around a smell for awhile, you just get used to it and you don't notice it anymore? well, that was my positive thinking philosophy about how we would deal with this. But guess what? 30 minutes in the house and I was NOT used to the smell! By this point in the story, I really was not feeling well! I don't have a weak stomach and I don't really get grossed out by bad smells but I was struggling with this one. Kevin used moth balls and vinegar in the guest bathroom (the place where you could smell it the strongest) and he had the Brown's ozone machine going and every vent and fan in the house on. He did all the "odor control" stuff. Now you know why I gave him the honorable title of "bad odor specialist". So we finally headed off to get supper someplace - someplace miles away from our house. I was thinking about this blog while we were out and I was going to title it 1 stinky house for sale but I really do like my house so I decided I would just like to trade houses with someone for a few days. Now for the results of Kevin's work: We got home and it was MUCH better! If you were to step into our house tonight your nostrils would be greeted with the slightest scent of something dead, mixed with the smells of: moth balls, vinegar, candles, deoderizing spray and anything else that we thought might help the smell. I know many of those smells are not pleasant folks but trust me when I say, I would sniff mothballs any day over the other smell. Of course me being my "paranoid about what people think about me" self, I was worried about a couple of things. First of all, it was one of those smells that was so strong that you are just sure that even when you walk out of the house, you are going to still smell like that smell. I could just imagine it:
Another customer in the restaurant we are in: "Does it smell like there is something dead in here to you guys?"
Us [laughing]: "Oh no, that's just us - but don't worry, you'll get used to the smell."
I really was paranoid enough that I asked Kevin if he thought our clothes had absorbed the smell. Then the other thought on my mind was "What would people think if they smelled our house?" I know that sounds weird since it really is no reflection on how clean the house is or anything but that's just me. So I did the "What would you think if it was someone else?" and I realized that not only would I think nothing bad about it but I would probably also find it humorous - thus my post. So now, you all no the secret about our stinky house. Why don't ya'll stop on by for a visit? :)