Victory?

Somehow I had failed to chronicle the smell in Mary's Prius. A mouse, it seems, had crawled up into the climate control and died, yielding a rich smell for all of us. We took it to Auto Logic and spend maybe $600 with them trying to get rid of it, but in the end they said it was so deep in there that it would could $1500 or so to take the whole dash apart to get to where it seemed to have died.

So Mary suffered and I tried all manner of remedies to address it: sachets of charcoal, plug in ionizers, etc. Admittedly I never sprinkled baking soda on all the seats and carpets and then vacuumed it out.

The internet told me that the animal should have long since desiccated, meaning that the only conclusion was the the smell was deep inside the upholstery. The car was also filthy after first being the family road trip car for a long time and then after accompanying Natalie to California and back last summer, so it just needed some attention.

Eventually my office mate Adam asked if I had tried one of these "Little Green" machines. Essentially they are small steam cleaners, the kinds of things car detailers use. I of course had not. He lent me his. Over the weekend I finally did the baking soda thing and then spent a few hours attacking the seats and carpets with the Little Green thingie. Let's hope that the smell stays in abatement. 

The moral of the story of course is to just keep plugging and not accept defeat from trying only lazy man approaches to problems. As with many things, I surely could have outsourced this one and a detailer would probably have done a better job, but then I wouldn't have the satisfaction of having done it myself. I know I've said that before.