Inside the structure
Dead animal inside the house in Toledo
Everything turns on one question: can it be reached without cutting into the building? Settle that before anyone comes out, because only one of the two answers is a removal job.
Reachable, which is the job
A crawl space you can get into. An attic with a hatch and boarded runs. A garage, basement, barn or shed. Behind an appliance, in a duct that opens, above a drop-ceiling tile, in a vent with a cover that lifts off. If a person can get to it, it can come out.
Sealed in a finished wall, which is not
An animal of any size that died inside a closed wall, ceiling or plaster cavity cannot be reached without opening finished surface, and the operator does not cut into drywall, plaster or ceilings. Left where it is, the smell generally eases as decomposition runs its course, at a pace set by the animal, the season and the airflow. What is reasonable is finding out which situation you are in.
What Toledo housing stock means here
A lot of the city is old enough to have real roof voids, generous attics and crawl spaces rather than slab-on-grade, and the Old West End in particular is full of large older houses. That can help, because an older house more often has a hatch, a crawl space or an open run into the spaces animals get into. It does not change the rule above: if the only way to it is through finished drywall, plaster or a ceiling, it is not a removal job, in an old house or a new one.
Check before you call
- Is there a crawl space or attic hatch, and can you open it?
- Is the smell strongest at floor level, ceiling level, or near a vent?
- Has something been getting in? A soffit gap, a broken vent cover, a gap under a door.
- Are flies gathering at one spot? That usually marks it within a foot or so.
- Is there power and light in the space, and how tight is it?
If you cannot tell where it is at all, start with narrowing the smell down instead.