Eau de dead animal. They don't sell that scent in a diffuser.

When my kids were younger, I took the door and the surrounding walls leading down to my basement off to create an open feel in my kitchen which also enabled me to hear the ruckus that was going on down there.

I could easily scream from the kitchen "Quit sitting on your sisters hair" or lob juice boxes down the stairs and still be a rather effective mom.

This design has also been beneficial in the teen years because when it gets really silent down there, you know its time to take a peek.

But what I thought was a brilliant renovation has turned out to be a nightmare because an animal, looking for refuge from the cold weather, got lodged in one of the basement walls. About a week ago, I thought I heard a weird a scratching down there but with all the woodpeckers attacking my house and birds flying into my windows, I just assumed it was more of what we call country living.

Country living my ass. Because three days later, an odor of dead animal carcass started wafting through my house with some serious hang time in my kitchen. Foul is not the word. Disgusting. Revolting. Putrid beyond belief. I opened every window. I whipped out every diffuser and lit every scented candle I could find. My house looked like I was going to host a seance. But in spite of my efforts to mask the odor, nothing seemed to work.

I called every exterminator in town until I finally found one that could come right over. He stepped one foot in my house and said, "Hmmm, dead mouse".

"Sir, that smell is too horrendous to come from something so small" I countered.

"You would be surprised", he said and walked directly to my basement without instruction. I followed him, holding a tissue to my nose.

"It's somewhere in this general area but the only way to access the animal is to start taking out pieces of your sheet rock. It can be a needle in a haystack kind of thing". he said

The thought of ripping up my basement made my heart sink.

"Most people just let it decompose in the wall. In a week or so, you won't smell nuthin." he added.

What I wouldn't give to hear a basement door slam right now. So after paying him $85 for "nuthin'" , I continue to audition diffuser scents.

(P.S. Thymes FIR is pretty good. Smells like I shoved a few Christmas trees down there).