The first night in forever it's been cool enough to open the windows, a dead animal stinks up the whole neighborhood (and my house)
For the first time in 6 or 7 weeks, it was cool enough last night to open the windows instead of running the A/C. Before bed, I opened up all the windows downstairs and upstairs to make sure there was good circulation.
That part was successful; house was 72 degrees when I got up this morning and very comfortable. Maybe I'll even weep a little less when I open this month's power bill. Except, what's that horrible smell?
Nearly gagging, I think, "Aww, man. Did one of the dogs have an accident?" The smell is omnipresent throughout the house, but after checking everywhere, no obvious source could be found.
As I stepped outside with the dogs, the stink became much thicker, and I realized what I smelled inside was coming from outside. The whole neighborhood reeks of dead animal, and now so does my whole house.
Update: Just called animal control, and they're going to come out and try to find/remove it.
Oh man. I had something like this happen once. Came home one day to find a deer standing in my driveway. I knew something was wrong and as I got closer, I realized it had been hit by a car. It was in really bad shape. I seriously thought about putting the poor thing out of its misery but I didn't get time to do anything before it took off into the woods behind my house.
About three days later, I walked out my front door to the most God awful smell imaginable. I thought I was going to be sick. The deer had run just past the tree line and promptly collapsed and died right there in the woods behind my house. I couldn't go outside for a week.
Based on the "size" of the smell, that's what I'm thinking is the culprit here. There's all kinds of suburban deer around, and if I'm right, there may be one less now.