Hi Tom,

I'm really hoping you can help. My husband and I just bought an old 1953 bungalow on concrete block. We have a small 3 piece bathroom at the back of the house that is on septic. We are not sure of when the last time it was cleaned and the previous owners say they never needed to do it :eek: They had the home for 10 years (only 2 old people living here).The problem that we are having and have only noticed since we have moved in (not before) is that one of the back bedrooms smells like a dead animal - it makes me want to vomit. Access to the plumbing for this bathroom comes from a small cut out in the wall with sliding doors in our problem bedroom. It is definitely under the tub where the sewage and water drain. The way they have the tub set up is that it is on a partial subfloor - they cut out some of the concrete block to run everything into the septic. There is small amounts of gravel covered by vermiculite (tested for asbestos and thankfully it's okay) used for insulation. There doesn't appear to be a P-trap for the tub but somehow I don't think that this is our problem as the odor is in the bedroom backing onto the washroom, not actually in the washroom. There were mice living in there at one point but we have taken out most of the insulation and no dead animals and the smell remains. The smell does vary in strength from day to day. We need to have this problem addressed so that my daughter can have her bedroom-we haven't been able to fix this as we are not sure what to do. Any advice is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Natasha

Hi Tom,

I'm really hoping you can help. My husband and I just bought an old 1953 bungalow on concrete block. We have a small 3 piece bathroom at the back of the house that is on septic. We are not sure of when the last time it was cleaned and the previous owners say they never needed to do it :eek: They had the home for 10 years (only 2 old people living here).The problem that we are having and have only noticed since we have moved in (not before) is that one of the back bedrooms smells like a dead animal - it makes me want to vomit. Access to the plumbing for this bathroom comes from a small cut out in the wall with sliding doors in our problem bedroom. It is definately under the tub where the sewage and water drain. The way they have the tub set up is that it is on a partial subfloor - they cut out some of the concrete block to run everything into the septic. There is small amounts of gravel covered by vermiculite (tested for asbestos and thankfully it's okay) used for insulation. There doesn't appear to be a P-trap for the tub but somehow I don't think that this is our problem as the odor is in the bedroom backing onto the washroom, not actually in the washroom. There were mice living in there at one point but we have taken out most of the insulation and no dead animals and the smell remains. The smell does vary in strength from day to day. We need to have this problem addressed so that my daughter can have her bedroom-we havent been able to fix this as we are not sure what to do. Any advice is appreciated.

Sincerely,
Natasha
Okay, quick follow up. We removed the baseboards in the "stinky" room to put in a subfloor. My husband vacuumed under the bottom edge of the drywall and around the frame to the plumbing opening and "thunk" there was our answer - a dead mouse under the 2x4 that frames the opening. Glad the smell is finally gone but does anyone now have an answer to our mouse problem :(