My wife was away for thanksgiving and left in mid Nov. I did a walkthrough on an old apartment and grabbed some frozen chicken out of the freezer. I took the chicken home in my wifes WRX and accidentally left it in there for 4 weeks with the windows rolled up. The chicken was frozen and we have had some cool nights, but the dead animal smell was made good by the strong southern california sun. The package did not leak... but the smell is in everything.
!The smell will not come out!
We tried Nature's Miracle and a full interior detail. A box fan has been running in the car for days. I think the moisture from the carpet and upholstery cleaning made it worse.
Anyone know how to get dead animal smell out of your interior?
We are taking it to a professional detailer that has some kind of overnight ozone gas treatment they perform. I will post the results
Get some natural vanilla extract, dampen a paper towel with it, put it in a sandwich bag and put it in the car with the bag open somewhat. Won't get rid of the smell, but should do a good job of masking it for a long while.
And next time no dead animals in the car!
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Irony is that my aunt cleaned out the fridge, left nothing in it BUT this chicken. I was pissed that at walkthrough it was in there. Then just forgot all about it when I got home. Left a phone and the chicken, last two things in the apt, in the car.
I will look into this vanilla masking technique as we lock the car up tight for winter travel, and hopefully when we get back the stench with be tolerable and sweet as pudding.
Not sure how well it will work with a car, but it does wonders on the coolers we thaw meat out in for our catering gigs so a little chicken shouldn't be a problem.
The real vanilla extract will cost more than the artificial stuff, but does a much better job masking smells.
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if that gas treatment your getting doesnt work, i know there are companies that deal with crime scene cleanup. most of them do other things like dead animals and things like that. my girlfriend used one after they found a dead bear at her cottage, and it will probably cost you less than a full detail
Mythbusters did an episode on this, with dead and decaying pigs. I bet if you looked it up on youtube, you might be able to find what they found out. I think they were concerned about getting the smell of dead bodies out of the car.
A friend had a similiar experience, except he left fish bait (squid) in the igloo in his van for a week or two, during summer. The stench was unbareable, my gf sat in the car for 2 minutes and we had to drop her off b/c it was so bad.
He was able to get rid of the smell by steam/wet vac'ing the interior.
yeah, I left a cooler with a bunch of food in my Solara after a camping trip- yuck!!! The smell didn't leave until multiple bottles of febreeze had been used. I'm sure your situation is well beyond that but it does help mask the smell.
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Mythbusters did an episode on this, with dead and decaying pigs. I bet if you looked it up on youtube, you might be able to find what they found out. I think they were concerned about getting the smell of dead bodies out of the car.
That was brutal. They needed a full tear down and there was still residual smell (most likely in the ducting).
On top of what ever else they are suggesting, I say leave a couple of boxes of open baking soda in the car. Unfortunately I think you'll need to rip out all the interior and air them outside of the car..........even then you might be stuck with the smell.
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