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 the two answers lead to completely different work.
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 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
A mouse or a rat that died inside a closed wall or ceiling cavity cannot be reached without opening finished surface. This site does not present cutting drywall, plaster or ceilings as standard removal work, and does not promise the repair afterward. What is reasonable is finding out which situation you are in before anyone makes a hole.
Toledo housing stock works in your favor 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 is usually good news: an older house tends to give access to the spaces animals get into, where a modern sealed build does not.
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.