Now this is a first for me; however, I will leave the address and customers’ details out so as not to cause embarrassment.

A customer called (a man) advising that there was a fishy smell in his carpet.

So I attended the site to investigate. The smell was pungent. The customer did not know what the smell was.

I flushed the carpet with just cold water under high pressure and then several dry passes. Once that was done, a very strong odour destroyer application was applied and left to dwell.

This was then flushed out using very hot water.

And then a final application of our odour remover was left.

Two days later, the customer contacted me to say the smell had returned.

Returning to the property, scratching my head.

Once at the property, the smell was again there, and so pungent. We will need to lift the carpet. There must be something underneath the carpet.

The carpet was uplifted, nothing obvious to see, the smell was coming from under the underlay.

The underlay was uplifted, and what I found was a first for me in my years as a carpet cleaner.

Flattened tuna fish. Around two feet square. It smelled bad! Really bad!

Taking a scraper, the fish was removed.

The area where the fish was cleaned was treated with an antibacterial and mould solution.

The underlay was replaced, and the back of the carpet was treated.

The carpet was then replaced, and the carpet was cleaned.

I advised the customer that I would return in three days to see how things were. I attended when arranged and the smell had gone.

However, he did tell me he found out who did this. His ex-wife to be. She had left the property but returned when he was at work. Her friend helped her pull the carpet back, and they planted a lot of tuna and replaced the carpet.  

He was not amused.

But he did admit that he had been a naughty boy and was found out.