Blocking a vent

dollydishmop

Hi all

Not sure if this is the right place to put this query, Mods - feel free to move if necessary.

We're currently renting an old cottage (approx 150 yrs old), while we renovate our own, even older, cottage.

Before we moved in, 3 yrs ago, the landlord had given the place a little spruce up.

The room, which is currently our bedroom, possibly used to be a living room....there is a fireplace that has been blocked up, and there an air vent in the wall by the bed. The chimney itself has a small, close grill over the top of it, so no critters can get down it.
In the last couple of months we've noticed a funny smell in the room and put it down to a little bit of damp, smelly socks, smelly hamsters, smelly anything... But over the last 2 weeks or so its got worse....to the point where I came the other day (sunny morning, grey afternoon) and the smell was so awful, I thought my OH had put a rotting bag of rubbish in the bedroom (which is right next to the entrance hall). We've turned the room upside down numerous times looking for the source of the smell, and last night we took the grill off the vent in the wall, took a good sniff and almost passed out. It stinks like some reasonable sized animal is decomposing in there. We pulled the grill off the wall, and had a good poke about in there with a torch and a mirror and could see nothing apart from a small mouse who ended his days down there. We removed the mouse and all the stuff around him, and deposited it all in a bin bag. But then I had a good sniff inside the bin bag (don't ask, I'm led by my nose) and although it clearly smelt of dead mouse, it wasn't the smell we were hunting for. My OH was convinced he'd cured it though, shades of the great white hunter, but the smell is still there and as bad as ever. I realise that whatever it is, once its decomposed completely will stop smelling....but with the cooler autumn months and oncoming winter months I also know this would take longer than it would in a hot summer (ha ha!).
I should add, that in my early 20's I worked in a place that rendered fallen livestock, and sometimes I'd drive out and collect dead cattle that had been dead a while....and whilst I'm not in anyway suggesting there is a dead cow in my wall, I simply don't believe a little dead mouse is the cause of such a strong smell...I'm guessing its possibly something medium sized, a cat or a rabbit...but I can't find it, so this is pure speculation.
So my plan is to block this air vent off completely with a plastic bag and some gaffer tape....and do a nose check once a month until whatever is down there has rotted away completely.

What are the likely repurcussions of doing this? And/or can you suggest any other things we could do to either get rid of this problem or speed up the decomposition process?
For what its worth, the top window is generally open at all times, except when we're both out.
I don't know whats in there, rotting away, and I don't know how it got there....and apart from ripping the whole wall out, I don't know what else to do about it? So the gaffer tape and plastic bag is coming out this evening, unless one of you can give me a very, very good reason not to!

This is a small one-bed cottage, there's nowhere else we can sleep. I'm worried about breathing this sh*t in all night long, and to be honest its like sleeping in a badly-run over-heated abbatoir right now. Definitely not recommended as a new air freshener scent. We go to bed feeling sick, we wake up feeling sick....the whole room reeks!
Of course I could plug in a strong air freshener and try to ignore it, but those things have me waking up with a sore throat and a headache...and there are two small hamsters living in the room too, so I don't like putting chemical air fresheners in there. (and no, its not them making the smell!)

My OH is convinced its the landlord's grandmother bricked up in the wall....with that smell constantly in our nostrils I'm not appreciating his humour...

sydthebeat

so are you saying that theres a vent in the external wall for air, as well as this grill in the chimney???

if so, seal away.....

its quite possible, if the above is the case, that air is actually being sucked down the chimney by the external air vent... even the open windows may be doing it... so if there was a dead animal, or a nest in the flue with a dead bird etc, the smell would be dragged down into the room....

if not, then are the external walls drylined??

dollydishmop

Thanks for the quick reply!

OK, I'll do my best to describe the ventilation set up.

There's an external vent in the wall of the chimney itself, above the roofline.

And in the room, there's a vent in the wall at around 3½-4ft high, and the hole behind it is, we assume, the old fireplace. As far as I can see, these are the only vents at that end of the house.

The landlord only got around to drylining 2 rooms before we moved in...this room isn't one of them...so on that wall, and the other external wall there are the odd damp patches coming through the plaster. We're not too bothered by them. The wall in question faces NE, the other external wall faces NW...effectively, the corner points North

And, yes, there's a constant 'breeze' through the vent....great for waking up with a stiff neck, so we tend to have the plastic vent cover pushed across to the 'closed' position. (which still produces an impressive breeze, especially if there's any wind at all outside).

The grill on top of the chimney, is an old bread-rack, you know the stuff you'd put cakes out on after they'd been in the over. I promise! Its cemented in on top of the chimney pot. :rolleyes:

So you reckon I'm OK to seal this creature up in its tomb? So we can have a stench-free night's sleep?

Poor Uncle Tom

Block it up, you won't miss it.

I had to do some work to a very old cottage a long time ago, 950mm wide clay and stone walls at the floor slopeing to 450mm wide at the 2.7m high sloped ceiling, bare skin of concrete on the clay floor, no DPM, anyway while I was knocking out a new door in the back wall I came across a nest of rats who had made their home within the floor/wall area no more then 100mm from the room space, which happened to be about 1.5m from the fireplace. Anyway, this nest was old enough, lined with feathers, fur, bits of shredded newspapers and in one area had little bones and a carcass of a dead rat. The smell was vile, spent a good hour emptying my guts that morning.

I'm not saying it's what you've got, I'm just telling my story.

Just shivered all over, must go take a shower now.