What's that smell in the duct work?!?

[Nathan Gesner]

Another bad tenant situation.

Tenant complains about mice in the duct work. I send a contractor out to check and the duct work is completely solid with no holes where mice can get in from the outside. The only way anything could get in is from inside the house through floor vents. A month later the tenant comes in complaining about a bad odor. He believes the mice are dead in the duct work.

Three months go by and he's pretty quiet. Then he walks in on a Friday afternoon and tells me he bought a house and will move out that weekend. When I ask why, he claims it's because he can't stand the mice and the smell.

He moves out and we check the house. There's definitely an odor in one particular area and it seems to come from the heater vent. Owner hires someone to clean the duct work and they find a can of potted meat. However, I look at the picture and notice the potted meat is still closed so it doesn't explain the smell. The do some more camera work and find this:

Yes, that is a cat with a second can of potted meat (still closed). We estimate it's been there about four months.

Our suspicion is that the tenant put the cat into the ductwork to catch mice and then couldn't get it to come out. He put potted meat down there to try and lure the cat but never opened the cans.

It's worse than last week's poop story.