The smell of a decomposing mouse somewhere forward of the firewall

Man, this aircraft ownership thing really does present its share of tests.

The latest issue I am dealing with is a decomposing mouse somewhere forward
of the firewall. My aircraft is a Bonanza V35 and I am flying at least
twice a week, but frequency (or lack thereof) of flight appears to be
unrelated to the probability of a mouse choosing the aircraft for its new
home.

This story began about a month ago as I was departing IFR out of Syracuse,
NY (Northeast US) in low ceilings and snow. During takeoff, small specks
that glistened in the light started blowing out of the windshield
defroster. I thought this may have been snow pulled in from the outside
and was struck by the beauty of the sight, but seconds later reality came
crashing back when large chunks of insulation joined the warm air blowing
out of the defroster and landing all over the glareshield, seats, and
pilot.

Very friggin' nice, I thought as I reached down and closed off all forced
air ducts while hand-flying the climb in IMC. Now I am sitting inside a
cloud of glass while flying through a cloud of snow, getting cold and
breathing these microscopic fragments of glass.

Earlier that previous week I had some avionics work done so when I landed
after this flight, I called the shop and asked if they could have
accidentally dropped any of the aircraft insulation into the ducts. The
avionics tech assured me that this didn't happen and suggested that a mouse
may have attempted to build a nest with insulation inside one of the ducts.
A mouse, you say? I felt another unique aircraft ownership experience
upon me.

When I returned home later that week, I immediately went shopping for some
D-CON mouse poison baits and placed them around the t-hangar. Oops, in
hindsight that was a poor idea. Mouse poison is not as fast acting as a
snap-trap and any mouse who eats the poison will most likely have time to
check into the aircraft hotel before expiring. A fitting Eff-You to the
human who placed the traps, no doubt.

Flash forward to last Thursday night. I returned from my weekly commute,
pushed the aircraft into the t-hangar, plugged in the Tanis heater and
covered the cowling with an insulated cover. I was about to slide on the
insulated prop covers when I suddenly caught a lung-full of rotting mouse
smell, emanating from somewhere inside the hot engine compartment. Whoa...
who would have guessed that such as little creature could produce such a
large odor?

The next day I contacted my mechanic and we both spent an hour or so poking
and prodding the engine compartment and various stack? hoses with beams of
light and mirrors-on-a-stick looking for the critter. No joy.

Given that the smell was not making its way into the cockpit and that the
dead carcass was obviously not anywhere that would interfere with engine
operation (or catch on fire) we agreed that he would do a more thorough
search and recovery during the annual that was coming up in a few weeks.

After landing today I noted that the smell was still just as putrid as it
was last Thursday night. How long does it take for a mouse body to
decompose past the point of the nasty odor?


--
Peter