HELP Dead rat stinking out rental

tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 14:26
Last edited 07/05/2019 - 15:28

If anyone could offer some advise we have 5 months left until our lease is up.

One of the back bedrooms particularly stinks soooooo bad from a dead animal I will never forget the smell for life, the bedroom is unusable leaving us a family of 4 (7 month old and 2 year old), with 2 bedrooms.

We have been up in the roof and the rat cannot be found. The real estate agent sent a maintenance person and he also could not find it, he said we will have to ride it out.

Any advise on what our rights are and how long we will have to ride it out for? I have never dealt with anything like this before. I am in Western Australia.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • JimmyF on 07/05/2019 - 14:36
    -1

    Any advise on what our rights are and how long we will have to ride it out for

    Did you kill it? If so, no rights.

    The smell will be gone in a month. Open the window and wait

    • tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 14:43

      No we didnt but on inspecting the roof its full of ratsak prior to moving in to this house.

      • Seedy seed on 08/05/2019 - 08:27

        Go buy some them auto sprayers with smell cartridge and leave them goin for a month or so.

    • GG57 on 07/05/2019 - 14:45
      -1

      Yep, I agree. It just needs to decompose and the smell will dissipate.

      OP doesn't provide the ages of the (I assume) two children, but living in two bedrooms for a few weeks shouldn't be life changing.

      • tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 14:47
        -1

        7 months and 2 and a half years old, i don't get sleep as it is 🙄

    • tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 14:50

      Cant open the window as it pushes the smell further through the whole house

  • thatonethere on 07/05/2019 - 14:45
    +4

    Try asking for a rent reduction due to the missing bedroom.

    You may have to use your nose to track it down - could be in the wall.

  • [Deactivated] on 07/05/2019 - 14:52
    +2

    If you have an accurate non contact thermometer, you can find dead possums at least from the warmth of decomposition.

    If you are just guessing, I would increase the airflow using an electric fan into the wallspace during the day with dry outside air.

    • tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 14:55

      I do have an accurate non contact thermometer, what temperature should I be looking for? Will the fan speed up the decomposition?

      • [Deactivated] on 07/05/2019 - 15:32
        +2

        Rooms naturally are a bit hotter towards the top. You are looking for a local hotspot against a wall or ceiling.

        The fan is mainly to dry things out. Much less stinky.

  • shaybisc on 07/05/2019 - 14:57

    You need blowflies. They will find it, dispose of it and the smell quickly, then leave.

    • [Deactivated] on 07/05/2019 - 15:15
      +4

      Then you'll have blowflies.

      HELP. Blowflies swarming my rental!

    • Ughhh on 08/05/2019 - 01:01

      No thanks, blow flies are the worst.

      Everyone should google image it ;)

    • Zachary on 15/05/2019 - 16:16

      what are blowflies?

  • GG57 on 07/05/2019 - 15:18
    +3

    If it was not a rental property, what would a resident do?

    • tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 15:24

      I would have put barriers up to prevent rats entering the roof, remove ratsak and clean up the roof space prior to this happening if I owned this place and called proper pest control. I did report it before the rats died but they did nothing.

      • shaybisc on 08/05/2019 - 12:16

        Pest controllers, in my limited experience, are bloody useless. They will put baits all over the place and spray everywhere but will not locate and seal the entry point for pests. Apologies to any pest controllers who do.

    • [Deactivated] on 07/05/2019 - 15:25
      +4

      HELP Dead rat stinking out rental owner-occupied

  • [Deactivated] on 07/05/2019 - 15:29
    +6

    Bowie knife and a carton of Glen20.

    Stab the cans and throw one in each room.

    Important - Don't look back after you've thrown the cans. After throwing out all the stabbed cans, make sure you exit the property, pause, sigh, and continue walking without ever looking back. Sunglasses high recommended.

    • tamby_is_the_rajah on 07/05/2019 - 15:29

      😂😂😂

    • Ozpit on 08/05/2019 - 10:06

      I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

      • Zachary on 15/05/2019 - 16:16

        ….cans don't explode if you stab them with a knife……unless the knife is a 1000 degree Celsius knife……

  • Viospeed on 07/05/2019 - 16:58
    +1

    Should have used one of these water rat traps:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-LZO4vJNtM

  • brad1-8tsi on 08/05/2019 - 08:23
    +2

    I've had to deal with dead rats in wall cavities a lot as my old neighbour had 2000 pigeons that attracted rats, many of which decided to live in my roof. I put out ratsack, so the rats would die and often got stuck in the wall cavities.

    The smell goes away after a week.

    • Ozpit on 08/05/2019 - 10:05

      A week should do it. The warmer the weather, the worse the smell, but the faster the decomposition.

  • terrys on 08/05/2019 - 10:10
    +1

    Nilodor. Local supermarket. 2 drops.

  • skillet on 08/05/2019 - 12:03

    Go hire an industrial fan, open window, have the fan at the window pointing outside. This will act as an exhaust. Close door, seal underdoor with some old rags. Wait a few weeks during winter :(.

  • panorama on 08/05/2019 - 14:59

    I now longer use ratsak after one of the bastards died in the roof cavity and it stank for weeks…………….nearly gagged and worse it was in the lounge room

    Now traps only outside

    • [Deactivated] on 08/05/2019 - 15:12

      Yep. It works by dehydration so the animal will often find a hidden and hard to reach place to curl up and die.

  • KB2 on 10/05/2019 - 09:36

    We had a water rat somehow find it's way into a wall cavity and underneath the bath (couldn't find the bloody thing at the time). Stunk for about a week but the flies were the worst! Found it's mummified body a couple of years later when re-doing the bathroom!

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