Or perhaps squirrelly, or something worse… The house is currently filled with the sound and vibration of walls and ceilings being sawn apart in search of the source of a smell which has gotten increasingly worse over the past four days. Last week, our downstairs neighbors asked us if we smelled anything funny, but we hadn’t, and figured it was something to do with their chemicals – like every other building on the street, the first floor of our house is home to a hair salon. At the end of last week, though, as our landlord began taking apart the walls downstairs, the smell of something, which everyone seems to assume is some creature that has died in the walls, came wafting up to our apartment, and hasn’t left.

We spent the weekend in Boston, a quick trip to help celebrate Aimee’s aunt’s birthday and to hang out with the kids, and we had a great time. We returned yesterday afternoon, hoping the smell would be gone, but it definitely isn’t. We ate Wegman’s Chinese takeout on our front porch yesterday, because the weather was nice and because our kitchen and living room are filled with the stench. We’ve successfully kept the smell out of the study, the bathroom, and the bedroom, so all isn’t lost at the moment, but it is pretty nasty. As the pounding continues below, I wonder what it is they’ll find in there.

UPDATE (8:00pm): Thanks to the quick work of our landlord, all is back to normal. He’s still downstairs patching up the ceiling of the salon, but the source of the smell has been removed, and we can close our windows and eat in the dining room once again. Phew.