I just had to share this with everyone...
First, a bit of description, so that everyone can picture this.
Here's an image of my garage, where I keep Diana parked.
On the floor, and the platform, from about the third leg of the workbench to the back of the garage is a pile of stuff. (A gas range and dishwasher being stored for my sister, some recording equipment for my brother, miscellaneous tools, boxes, and all 22 screens from my house which are being re-screened and painted before being rehung, and that kind of thing).
Note the little red
X on the drawing?
I've spent the last three days removing all that stored crap (and Diana) from the garage, (I didn't even know that I had a table saw in there!) so that I could get in to the workbench platform, and dismantle the entire floor of the platform in that section to remove two dead opossums. Apparently, they somehow got in under the floor of the platform, probably from the outside of the building, fought, killed each other, and died in between the floor of the platform and the dirt/concrete floor of the garage. And they've been there about a week before I was able to get everything out and dismantle the floor of the platform to get the carcasses out. You can imagine the smell, the insects, and the various noxious and disgusting things I found under there.
What's that you say? "Thanks for sharing"? Well, I couldn't not disseminate all of this this to all my friends on this wonderful forum. Just be glad that I haven't posted the photos that my wife took of the horrors under the floor.
I just finished rebuilding the floor after spreading 60 lbs of lime to cover anything I might have missed, and have moved everything back in. After 2 showers, I feel reasonably clean again. I am so thankful for the respirator a neighbor loaned me, and for the lime my dad kindly offered and was used. We also went and bought three of those industrial-strength odor-eliminators from a local feed and seed store (they're about 8" in diameter and 10" tall, and filled with these little pellets that are supposed to suck in and trap odors) and have them in the garage. We also bought a gallon jug of some industrial strength deodorizing spray, and it's about 3/4 gone too.
I am hoping that I got all of it. And I've also repaired the siding on the outside where I believe they got in. Nothing bigger than a grasshopper could get in now.
Did I mention it stank abominably?
Whew...
