We need help and I hope someone on this site may offer a clue.
About a month ago, we began experiencing a strange odor in our basement. It occurred to us that it smells like urine -- urine like what we recall from our daughter's rabbit cage some years ago when it wasn't cleaned regularly. Rather pungent and wild animalish.
I should note that we also have mice in our house -- the house being almost a century old with plenty of access to these critters.
But there is a burrow outside the house near the foundation under the deck. The burrow is vertically (down) parallel to the basement area where the odor is a problem. My neighbor reported to me that he had seen a fairly large ground hog entering and exiting this area. I have since trapped two ground hogs and will enclose the deck w/ wood skirting once we set a trap right over the burrow hole to assure all the ground hogs are gone.
My question: the urine smell (if that's what it is) persists in the basement area. It comes and it goes. This morning, for example, there was no smell at all. But as I began the work day (my office is in the basement) the smell returned. We can even smell it faintly on the first floor of our home as it seems to be be permeating the hard wood floors that separate the first floor from the basement.
Does anyone have a clue what might be our problem? Ground hog urine still under the house? Something else inside the house? The smell is truly repulsive. Please e-mail me if you have any ideas: owen@metvideo.com. And thank you!
Owen May
Wauwatosa, WI
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Without a doubt you have mice in your home urinating everywhere! You need to kill all of varmints in your home and around your yard. If you do this the smell will subside and never be a problem again. You will not be able to do this on your own. You need to call an exterminator! The mice can and will ruin your home in time. You might actually be to late!
God Bless
Run a garden hose and fill the burrow, the GH will either run out or drown. You will need to fill the burrow with something like pea gravel, there are usually more than one entrance, you could also run auto exhaust into the hole but that could fliter into the house.
Either way when done fill with pea gravel, its hard for the gh to remove should one excape.
Use Fabreeze to mask the oder.
Once you're rid of the vermin,you might run a dehumidifier constantly in the basement for a few months.
I once tried to fill a ground hog burrow with water and after about a hundred gallons i gave up, the burrow was too big and the ground was soaking it too fast. He had made it "muskrat style"- he had dug down underneath an eighteen inch footing on a grain bin and popped up the other side on a 'shelf'. So no luck drowning him, i had to trap him. He was the only one but i was amazed at how big of a burrow he had cut in less than a week. There was no way to fill that hole with pea gravel or sand or my boss's brilliant idea- quickrete. What did we do? Well i dont know, i quit a day or two later(still on good terms, just had better things to do), and i am willing to bet it is still there.
But what i was gonna say is, that it dont take much urine(be it mice or groundhog) to stink up the house as long as it is strategically placed- such as next to an intake duct for your furnace or something like that. Urine also smells much stronger when it gets warmed up.
If you use one. Some of them will rip you off. From my experience a local family owned extermination business is more trustworthy than the franchises.
I had one guy come out with his fancy uniform from one of the well known TV advertised companies (can't remember which one now), and he did not want to just take care of my carpenter bees drilling into my log home. He only wanted to do a package deal contract etc. for others things I did not even have a problem with. I found a local exterminator from a family owned business and the bill was less than half of what the other franchise wanted.
this IS taxidermy.net, you know. And the answer IS in the archives! Owen, use the orange search button to your left, and enter uric acid odor eradicator. Use the same search phrase with the search engine Google, and you should come up with what you need.
I'm sitting here doing that LMAO thing. I entered the search phrase in Google and taxidermy.net pops up. I'm doing that "HUH?" thing. It was from a post I had replied to some time back. Taxidermy.net is a HUGE player on the web when it comes to search results. So that brings me to a question. Is Ken Edwards genius, or just plain old brilliant?
Any possiblity it's next to your house? According to one article I ready they have tunnels that lead to a sleeping cavity, escape, defacation, entry etc.
That is to say, the most popular sites, or those which are more often clicked on, make the top category in a google search. Ken and WASCO has fostered one of the most visited sites that outdoorsman go to. I'm voting for Genius with a modicum of brilliant.
You could just burn the home and rebuild!
You could just burn the home and rebuild!
They get into my truck every winter and make a nest by the engine and pee and when you run the engine and turn on the heater the stink comes in,but it disapates fortunatly. A friend had a mouse in his truck cab owing to his sloppyness of junk piled in there, but he set a mousetrap and got it.
So I bet its mice in the basement,but you will see mouse turds too,small oblong and brown. If thats the case, either set a bunch of mousetraps baited with peanut butter or get a pro in there.
Also is there any sign of another animal in there? Any way a possum or coon could get in?
Groundhogs- easy to trap with conibears, I just stick a 160 or 220 over the holes. Don't do this in a residentail area though unless you put fencing over top of the set to keep cats and dogs away. Otherwise cage traps work ok baited with half an apple in the back.
If any of you have groundhogs on farmland,get yourself a dozen 160 conibears and make rebar stakes and rebar stabalizers and you are good to go. Rotate the traps as needed if you have alot of dens. The stabalizers you stick between the set springs and the jaws of the trap,allowing for free firing of the jaws of course. Sometimes you have to dig the area in front of the hole out a bit to stick the trap in and allow firing clearance.
Groundhog meat makes good fox bait LOL.Old timers say its tasty for people to eat ,but you want a fresh kill, conibeared chucks can get discusting real fast,esp in warm weather.