Several years ago an animal control company told me that, instead of tearing out walls, just wait until summer, bear it out, and then the smell would be gone. Sure enough they were right about the end of June.

So simple, it’s genius

Yep. I work around apartments. I can tell you what it is before ever seeing it. Sewer, snake, rodent, cat. Dog may stump me, I’ll admit.


Oh and human. We had a lady melt thru her subfloor once in Plano. That one was rough

No thank you. A dead animal airing out in the pasture is one thing, but an enclosed fermenting person is something else

sewer or sink vent clogged, just something easy to check. My daughter has a drain line from the a/c condensation pan / water heater overflow pan that is plumbed into one of the bathroom sinks that got clogged up, stunk pretty bad until we unclogged it.

is the smell close to a bathroom, water heater closet, a/c closet/return air duct???

The only odor I've fought in the house was a sewer smell. Turned out to be the toilet seal was bad. 'Hope it's not something large dead. And the the lady melting...sad and sickening all at once.

I still say rat / chicken snake.

Poltergeist

Change its name.

" aroma. flavor. perfume. smell. stench. stink. whiff. snuff."

That'll make it go away...

Does he have any electrical outlets/switches on the walls in that hallway? If so, remove the plate covering the outlet/switch and take a big ol' whiff...he'll find out the general area and go from there. My brother-in-law's uncle had 3 squirrels crawl into the walls at his lake house through the wall a/c and died. He came to vacation at a stinky place.