My husband and I own a farmhouse outside a small town. Whenever we leave how for a few days and then return, one of the first things we do is check the mouse traps to see if there are any dead mice. Most of the time, we don’t really have to examine the traps. Even the tiniest of dead mice, if dead for a number of hours, give off a distinct odor. Left for days at a time, they become so putrid that you can hardly enter the room.

This was the case about a month ago when we returned to our home and found—through the distinct “dead mouse” smell—the tiniest of dead mouse that had met its demise while we were gone.

We had arrived late in the night, so my husband put the dead mouse—trap and all—outside to dispose of later. The problem is, he forgot about it.