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Q&As since 1989


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Mobile home wood smells

 

My dad has a mobile home and it has an odd smell as though it comes from the wood. I have searched high and low for a focal point with no success. It seems to be coming from the wood structure inside. Its a horrible odor and is always there.What kind of wood is used in structures for mobile homes? Can old wood give off such an odor?

Help!

C Clarke
- New York

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Just a theory, and you're not going to like it one bit: it's a dead mouse in the walls.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
 

How does one go about removing the smell? Does the smell go away on it's own, or do the walls have to be torn out one by one, until it's found?

Jeff Doak
- Chesterfield, Michigan USA
 

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I have no experience in this beyond having to deal with it a couple of times. In one case on an outside wall, spring came, and with it more air and perhaps insects, and the smell went away. In another case in an interior wall the smell gets worse and worse until you decide you have to do whatever it takes, which included taking the wall apart until I found it :-(

One lesson we learned is traps only, no mouse poison.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey