Dryer Vent
I discovered a small mouse the other day in my side yard. The dryer vents are also located there. After chasing the mouse, I had almost cornered him close to the dryer vent adjacent to a few recycling boxes. When I edged the box aside, I could see that he had used the vented dryer lint to make a small bed. The mouse leapt up and darted into the dryer vent, which was not operating then.
The vent had angled covers for directing the air down. Until then I had simply ignored how the vent works. But then now I wanted to make sure that the mouse did not set up house there. Hurriedly I scrambled back into the house and got the dryer going for a minute. My desire was to scare the mouse away. But then I did not see any sign of him outside. I reckoned that he got away. Or may be still holed up there, but would sneak out when he is hungry. This incident took place a couple of days ago.
But today I was overwhelmed with a terrible stink when I entered the laundry room. I just knew it. The worst has happened. I got the dryer out after prying open the flexible metal duct located between the wall and the dryer.
I took it outside cautiously and I saw the dead mouse at the back of the dryer sitting in the 90-degree angle fitting attached to it. That was barely an inch away from the inside of the dryer.
There is a big flap in our exhaust vent under the external angled cover. It was open about half an inch with years of lint accumulated there. The mouse must have jumped up and put the nose into this half inch gap and squeezed himself inside. But then it had squeezed in too far inside. There was a U pattern upside down inside the flexible ductwork. He must have crawled up the incline to the top of the inverted U from the hole in the wall after which he must have fallen down the other side. He must have tried to climb back to the top of the inverted U from where the exhaust exits the dryer at the floor level, but failed. Bad luck!
After cleaning it thoroughly, I reinstalled the duct back to its old self. Since then I am careful and I check the exhaust vent when I take the trash out every week. I made modification to the path of the flexible duct to a U pattern to dissuade future intrusions.
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July 23, 2008 | Ventilation
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