On April 23, 2007, a client called to inform me that some thing was wrong with the house that I had inspected for them, and that they had subsequently purchased. They had moved into the house just before Easter and now that were noticing an “awful smell in the laundry room.” They had consulted a plumber and a pest control provider, with out a positive result. They were now calling me. I could not help but ask myself, “Did I miss something during the inspection?” I did not know, but I had to find out. I believe in facing things “head- on” so I quickly decided to stop by the house as I was driving in from an out of town inspection.

As I was driving over to the house, I reviewed the floor plan around the laundry room. The house was on a slab foundation. The laundry room was located on the left side of the house and was accessible from the kitchen and the exterior door leading to the drive way. A half bathroom and laundry sink were installed off of the laundry room, and a laundry drain was present. All of these were excellent sources for foul odors. In my professional opinion I figured that the laundry sink trap or the washing machine waste drain trap was dry (with the odor being sewage related). All that would be needed is to add water to the sink trap, thus preventing any sewer odors from coming up through the drain pipes. Other possibilities included a plumbing vent that did not vent to the exterior, or a vent pipe that got punctured by a nail or screw when something was hung on a wall (I have seen this happen in Hazelwood Subdivision).

When I arrived I noticed that the washing machine had been relocated to the drive way. My client was fortunate that we seldom get rain any more. When Mr. Client opened the side exterior door to allow me to enter the laundry room, I was struck by the strong decaying odor that was present. Part of me wanted to smile (and jump for joy) because the odor was not of the sewage variety, but of something that was rotting. As I walked around the laundry room I observed that the odor was strongest at the dryer. The odor was diminished at the laundry drain (accessible due to the washing machine being removed), and non-existent in the half bathroom. This was puzzling. Did something die in the dryer or the dryer vent?

As I moved my nose over the dryer my olfactory senses raised the alarm. I then concentrated on the items stored on top of the dryer. Various cans and containers were present, just like on a lot of dryers. My nose stopped over a colored plastic bucket, and I told Mr. Client that the odor was very strong in the bucket. The look of confusion on my client’s face became one of comprehension and then changed to embarrassment as Mr. Client realized what had happened. I was still clueless. Mr. Client picked up the bucket and took it outside. Moving the bucket seemed to aggravate the odor, which became even stronger. Mr. Client sat the bucket on the drive way and began removing the empty plastic Easter Eggs from it. Beneath the plastic Easter Eggs were real (and rotting) Easter Eggs that were more than two weeks old! The mystery was solved.

As I was driving home I was reminded of another example where a “problem” pointed to one area, but was actually caused by some thing far less serious. My wife and I had finally called a repair man to service our very noisy dishwasher because I was convinced that the bearings were bad in the motor. This made sense because I had checked the unit from top to bottom, the dishwasher was getting old, and I was convinced that the grinding sound was coming from under the unit. When the repair man arrived I described the sound to him. Without even turning the unit on, he smiled, opened the dishwasher, and removed the bottom wand and the cover under it. Trapped beneath the cover was a variety of mangled metal items such as a spoon, a fork, and a Mason jar lid. Since I try to not go near the dishwasher, I considered their presence to not be my fault. None-the-less, my cheeks turned red, just like my wife’s. The mystery was solved. The repair man happily accepted our check and drove off into the sunset.

These two cases are examples that while a problem in the home may point to the “obvious”, the solution may be less obvious, and hopefully less expensive. If an electrical appliance or equipment will not work, verify that it has a power source. Is the breaker tripped? Does it have a reset switch? I have “repaired” a few garbage disposals by resetting this switch after the home owner told me that the disposal did not work. I have restored power to a few inoperable outlets by resetting a tripped GFCI outlet or breaker. The looks on the home owner’s faces were priceless. The next time you have a problem, don’t just look for the usual suspects, but look for the unusual as well.