Will a dead rat make my friend sicker?

January 29, 2016 4:36 PM

Will my sick friend get even more sick by living with a dead rat smell?

I have an elderly friend who has been battling a small rat problem for about two years. She's never seen or heard one in her house, never saw droppings, but we saw one on her roof a few summers ago so she called in professionals to make sure all was well. Since then, she's had a dead rat in her home about every four to six months. She calls the exterminators, they find and remove the dead rat, and everyone goes about their business. She's had workers in to close up every hole they can find, etc.

But.... a week ago she had that awful smell again, called the exterminators, and they cannot find the stupid dead rat. They've sent out two different guys who've looked and looked, still no dead rat. She's 78 years old, and developed a sinus infection and bronchitis just before the rat made it's presence known. Now her house REEKS, but she can't smell it at all because she's sick. She could leave for a while, but it would be a big imposition for her at her age.

Her thinking is that since she can't smell it anyway, she might as well just wait it out at home. Her son and I are afraid that living with the stench will make her even more sick than she already is, exacerbate her condition, and possibly result in more serious issues.

Is this at all possible? Is there any danger for an elderly, not-so-well person to live with this smell for another week or so?

posted by raisingsand to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Best answer: We had a rat in our walls over the summer in Florida, so it smelled horrifyingly bad but the smell only lasted about 4 days before the thing quickly decomposed enough not to stink anymore, since our exterminator similarly could not find the thing. The smell made me nauseous and burned my throat/nose/lungs to breathe. I had a bad headache for the worst 36 hour period. Basically the rat smell didn't give me a disease, but it made me feel like shit; I felt fine as soon as I left the house and got some fresh air. If you live somewhere cold then the smell will probably last a lot longer since it will decompose more slowly, which means that once she starts feeling better from the illness, she'll probably start feeling bad from the awful stench that is still lingering around.
posted by gatorae at 4:47 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: It just stinks. It's not emitting a miasma. If she's cool with it, should be okay.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:03 PM on January 29, 2016 [13 favorites]

Best answer: I lived with a dead rat smell for 2 weeks and it didn't make myself or my housemates sick.

Don't assume it will go away though since it kind of depends where it died. If it's somewhere where it is getting damp for some reason, the smell will stick around. The one we had died in the evaporator tray of our fridge and it just kept getting progressively worse.
posted by scrute at 6:42 AM on January 30, 2016

Best answer: I worked in an office with a dead rat right above us in the ceiling stinking for a couple of weeks - no side effects other than the horrific smell.

When we complained, builders insisted it was coming from the wrapping of a new window blind they'd just installed. The very meek PA happened upon our corner of the room and said with horror-film like portentousness: "That smells like DEATH...." We were working with huge scarves wrapped around our faces, and still the builders insisted it was just this oily wrapping.

Then one day we came in and there was a cartoon of a laughing rat with the words: "Ha ha, they found me!" which had been left on our desk by the builders (the cartoon, not the rat, fortunately...)

But we didn't get sick.
posted by penguin pie at 8:21 AM on January 30, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks y'all. She's staying put!
posted by raisingsand at 5:42 PM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]