The Eclectic Interweb

Phew. No idea what the smell is… or where it’s coming from… but suddenly the house *stinks*. It occurs to me it might be a dead rat or similar in the attic and the air conditioner is picking it up from somewhere… but this seems unlikely since the majority of the air is picked up from the passage between the bedrooms at the end of the house.

The other option… unfortunately… is that the water in the ‘trap’ under the toilet floor has evaporated *again* and is allowing sewer gas into the house. This happens from time to time… bloody builders (don’t get me started… grrr)… and requires a bucket of water with Domestos in there to sort it out.

I hope it *is* just the U-bend… of all things I *don’t* want to do right now, rooting around in a cramped attic searching for a rotting dead animal is probably pretty high on the list… with ‘high’ being perhaps the operative word! Ewww…..

Update:

Well I think I established where the smell was coming from fairly quickly and of course dealt with it. You might ask what it was that allowed me to establish the source so quickly… some 2 minutes after the above post?

Well to be honest… I knew the wife had mentioned a strange smell in the bedroom (on my side of course) so started in there… partly as well because that’s where the manhole to the attic is sited so I could stand on a ladder and poke my head thru the hole for a quick sniff.

However… when I wandered into the room it became fairly clear where the problem lay. The bed was on fire 😀

Somehow, the electric blanket had been switched on to the high setting, and had become scrunched up during the night. For whatever reason… it had decided it was too much for it to cope with and combusted. Luckily, despite having burned though itself, and two duvets and had made a creditable start on the mattress, it didn’t show any flame until I pulled the duvets off so bearing in mind I had a jug of water in my hand
ready to pour down the ‘trap’ it was quickly dealt with.

So… in the middle of everything.. I now have to get out and buy two new duvets, and of course a new mattress which has suddenly developed a large black hole in its centre.

Oop… damn lucky it didn’t do this during the night. Apart from the smoke and flame… whoever was lying on it… i.e. me… would have got a *very* serious shock… and not just from seeing the bed on fire.

I wonder why the smoke alarms didn’t go off? Time for some new ones methinks!!