For the past 3 days, my car has had a smell in it that would not go away. I cleaned it and sprayed the inside with Febreze twice, but the smell would not go away. “The Stink” episode of Seinfeld was actually happening to me! It wasn’t going away and I was going have to trade in my car.

I’m generally a clean person when it comes to my car. Sometimes I’ll leave papers or clothes in it, but since my car is old and I’m trying to keep it for as long as possible, I usually keep it pretty clean in hopes that it will continue to be nice to me and run well. Yesterday, the smell was absolutely UNBEARABLE. Even with both windows down Dave and I were ready to vomit. We searched through the car looking for something, anything, that might have died in my car. We opened the trunk and moved the cover over the area where my spare tire was. We found the source, both of us gagging instantly.

A few months ago, I watched Dave’s friend’s dog. When I was transporting him and his food to my house, a few pebbles fell into my trunk. I THOUGHT I had cleaned it all up, but apparently some fell under where my spare tire was located. I didn’t even think to look there because it’s covered, but food had gotten in there and sat for months. With all the rain we’ve been having lately, water must have leaked into my trunk, causing the food to get soggy and maggots to grow. Yep, my car had maggots.

I went to the store and picked up a bottle of bleach and some latex gloves (I wouldn’t dare go into this domain with bare hands) I was hoping the bleach would kill the maggots and help with the awful smell. I can take a lot of smelly stuff, but this stink was in a category all it’s own. I got back home opened my trunk, and with gloved hands removed everything I could from it-the spare tire, jack, jumper cables, and a bottle of antifreeze. I dumped bleach all over the area where my spare was and began digging out the nasty funk that had consumed my trunk, trying not to look and trying not to gag.

I managed to get it all out and cleaned up without losing my lunch and decided that today I would give my car a wash and a really good vacuum since a faint stink was still lingering. I bought some of that sprinkle stuff you throw on your carpet before you vacuum it and threw that all around my car before taking it to the $3 car wash. The only reason I took it to this place was because they let you use the high powered vacuums for free if you buy a wash. I put $3 in the machine, drive through, and the damn brushes took out my left mirror. They almost took out both, but Dave was able to pop my right one back in place. My left one fell off completely and cracked in half while I was driving through.

The guy working there filled out an incident report and said his boss wouldn’t be in until Tuesday, so I’ll be driving around for at least 2 days without a mirror. A $3 car wash is going to end up costing them a lot more than $3. Hopefully, I won’t have to explain to any cops what happened. After everything that has happened, at least my car smells AMAZING now.

Filed under: life, random by Barbara
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