What’s that smell?

Our weeks and months seem to fly by lately. In an attempt to keep a history for my kids here’s what’s been going on.

We had our air ducts cleaned this month. We hadn’t had it done since we moved in. We live in the woods where spring covers us in yellow pollen like snow. Since everyone has allergies it was something we needed to do. The men came and cleaned and I felt happy having one thing checked off my to do list. Once the men left I noticed a nasty fish smell in the girls room. I went to work searching and cleaning their room thinking there was old food somewhere. After wiping down walls, moving beds and furniture I didn’t find a thing. Until the heat kicked on. Holy smokes the fish smell was coming from the vent! It was strong too. I called the air duct guy and told him. He found it odd but would return the next morning. I got to thinking and wondered what in the world would cause a fish smell after the air ducts were cleaned, so of course I googled it. Well low and behold I wasn’t the only person this had happened too. The first website I came across led me to believe that even though it seemed like the smell was coming from the vent, it may actually be coming from burning electrical wires near by. It may even be coming from our electrical panel. This set me into a panic. I quickly checked out a few other search results and they all said it was electrical. I immediately called an electrician and explained the situation to him along with the websites I had read. He sent a couple guys out that afternoon to inspect the house. They found nothing. NOTHING.

That night I went to bed half in fear they had missed it and our house would burn down in the middle of the night. A bit drastic, but after reading so many other people sharing that their fish smell was electrical, I was still on edge until we knew exactly what the cause was. The next morning the vent men arrived back. I kicked the heat on so they could get a good whiff of the smell. They were baffled. They went to work on two vents that ran along the front of the house. About 10 minutes into it the owner approached me in the kitchen holding his hands out. He said he had found the problem. It appeared to be grapes, very very old grapes. Even better, they were purple. I don’t know the last time I bought purple grapes because my kids don’t like them. Plus Layton’s bed has been positioned slightly over the vent for the last year and the girls have no access to it. So our best guess is these grapes were dying peacefully in that air duct for more than a year. When the cleaners had sprayed their sanitizer through the vents it brought the grapes back to life. The goo the grapes were sitting in was rock hard and the grapes were almost cemented to the vent. So the vacuum they used was unable to suck them out. He asked me if I wanted to smell them to make sure that was what I was smelling. I did, and then I almost puked.

So the big lesson here kids is DON’T PUT GRAPES IN THE VENTS! They will someday come back to haunt you, and not only that, but also make you believe you’re house is about to burn down due to an unforeseen electrical problem.

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