Ductwork of Death

So the previous owners of our house had a mouse problem. In reality they had gap issues. This house is full of gaps. Holes in walls, ceilings, attics etc. There's practically a yellow brick rodent road into our house. The previous owners for whatever reason dealt with the symptons instead of curing the cause. Their tactic was poison. They literally created poison traps in the walls to attract and kill the mice. The mice go in and never come out. Only the stench of rotting mice is left. Until of course the next troop of mice find their way in. Last spring I spent some time cleaning up and/or identifying such locations. One such location is the receptacle of death. If you get real close and take a big wiff, you'll smell the death. Unfortunately I haven't brought myself to cleaning up that "situation". There was another spot in another wall we did clean up when we had our F.I.O.S. installed. There was a stinking gaping hole in the wall. I had no choice. The receptacle, which doesn't even work, has been conviently neglected by me.

While this was taking place, we noticed one of the ducts downstairs wasn't working. All the downstairs ducts have louvers to turn them on or off. This one particular duct wouldn't work regardless of louver position. The other difference between this duct and the others is it's made of flexible ducting. It's got some plastic outside shell with fiberglass insulation on the inside. In the middle there's what appears to be a tear of some kind, though I never got a chance to look very closely at it. My guess was the mice got in and made a cozy home out of it. Tonight I pretty much confirmed that theory. As I was spraying foam insulation in the cracks between the downstairs wall and the overhang, I bumped and moved the flexible ductwork around quite a lot. It didn't take long for the putrid stench of death to come wafting out. It's nasty. The fact it's so strong means there's multiple deaths residing in there. Probably poisoned, they made their way back to their nest in the ductwork and died - clogging and stinking it shut.

What a pain in the ass. It really doesn't bother me that I have to buy new ductwork and install it. That will be the easy part. Ripping that stinky-ass crap out and throwing it all away will be disgusting. It's just nasty, but it's my house. It has to be done.