I made a (chicken-)grave error: how do I remove this stench?

[dehro]

So, I went grocery shopping in my SO her car.
I left a chicken breast in said car, in a plastic bag on the front passenger seat.
2 days of hot Italian summer weather passed.
The packaging held, but nevertheless by the time the offending meat was removed from the vehicle, the stench of rotting meat had permeated the car, colonised it, hunkered down and made a declaration of eminent domain.
I went to the nearest car cleaning service, who gave me a metal can with some chemical to spray inside the car, telling me to put it inside, let it go off, turn the AC on and hope for the best.
Most of the scent went away or was overpowered by the presence of the chemical stuff. However, by the time that wore off, the remainder of the foul chicken corpse stench returned.
Now a good two weeks later, the odour is still there and seems to have no intention of leaving.
What can I do to fix this other than stripping the entire interior of the car and relacing it, or the car in its entirety?
My options are:

• replacing the floor mats with new ones
• using strong car deodorants for ever and ever in the hope they can cover the lingering stench
• find a better car cleaning service
• other?

[AMFV]

Eh, stripping it might be the only way out of this mess. I'd replace at least the mats close to where it was, completely. See if that helps, and if not then you'll have to expand your stripping and replacing. Bleach whatever fabric components you can bleach, replace whatever leathers you can replace.

[dehro]

well... poop!

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Yeah, it's most likely mostly the fabrics that retain most of the smell. That's the bad news but also the good news, most of the car should be relatively stench free.

The Mythbusters had to sell their car for scrap and parts, but they had left a whole pig in there for weeks, so that was quite a bit worse than your problem. The episode might contain some cleaning tips you can use though.

I would hope replacing all the easily replaceable bits like mats and having stuff like the chairs cleaned properly, maybe at a (clothing and such) steamer, would take care of most of the problem.

[dehro]

having stuff like the chairs cleaned properly, maybe at a (clothing and such) steamer, would take care of most of the problem.

how did I not think of this?!?!
also, now you mention this, I remember that episode... I should go watch it again.

[Algeh]

If you have a place where you can reasonably leave a car mostly disassembled with good air circulation, I'd try taking as many things out of the interior as possible and letting everything air out for a while. (I guess I'm specifically thinking of a screened porch or a barn, but I really have no idea what sorts of spaces you have. Obviously, not something to do in your living room.) Ideally, you'd set up some large fans for extra air circulation. (Sunlight might also help. Or is that just one of those things that people say to justify line drying clothes outside?) You'd also want to leave the car with all doors open so it could air out, if you have a place you could do that and still have a car later. (Would people in your area steal a car with no seats in it?)

The air circulation might help, and if you can get things further apart from each other you might also be able to tell which things stink the most so you can try to tackle those individually. If you can at least get as much fabric and leather as possible out of the car you can probably get the remaining car interior de-stunk.

[dehro]

Eh.. I'm probably capable of taking the thing apart, but the odds of me being also able to put it back together again correctly are abysmally low.. and my two options, a garage underground and therefore not very prone to air circulation and a large garden deprived of a shelter from the rain that has been falling these last days are both unsuitable anyway.
I got I touch with someone who specializes in sanitizing car interiors, so I'll spend the 30-odd bucks and have it done professionally.

[FinnLassie]

I keep on reading the thread title as "chicken-gravy error".

[dehro]

I keep on reading the thread title as "chicken-gravy error".

well, by the time I threw it away, there was an element of that too... except it was more slimy than gravy

[Ravens_cry]

Ugh, getting flashbacks to an error of my own.
See, I went camping for the July 1st long weekend (it's Canada Day; think 4th of July, but in Canada. And on the 1st of July). I'd stored some of my food in my freezer so it would keep cool as long as possible, and when I took it out, I'd forgotten to put some unbreaded, uncooked, chicken burgers back in. For the whole. Long. Weekend. Turns out to have been something of I came back to an intense sickly sweet smell. I quickly found the source, but the smell lingered. It was so bad, my landlord came knocking to investigate. I was absolutely mortified, not least since I reeeeally don't like people in my apartment without invitation. I got most of it, but for months after, I'd get a whiff of that sickly sweet smell, and I'd go into panic mode.

[Quoxis]

Find your nearest exorcist/medium and tell the lingering chicken ghost you didn't mean it.

Jokes aside: the smell most likely sticks to the seats AND to any fabric inside the car - possible fabric ceiling (is it called that when talking about cars?) as well as any mats inside the car may smell way worse than the upholstery itself, in case you didn't febreze them as well.

Other than that: pressure/steam washing, drying at fresh air and using chemical warfare agents is probably the safest bet.

[ve4grm]

Right, so not as bad as your situation, but we once had a jug of milk tip over and crack open on the floor of our car. We sponged most of it up, but what was there soaked into the carpet and the entire car smelled like bad milk.

Note that we didn't go to a professional cleaner, but tried a variety of home remedies.

Things that helped:

- baking soda - just like you might have in your fridge to control odours, putting this down can help soak up odours from fabric. Warning, our floor mat is still streaked with white from doing this, since it was still wet when we put it down.

- coffee - sitting an open container of coffee grounds in the car for a while helped more than I thought it would. Apparently it absorbs the scent while also covering it with coffee smell.

- pet cleaner - as in the stuff you spray when a pet pees on the rug. It worked alright.

- charcoal - we didn't try this one, but charcoal can apparently do similar to the coffee, but better?

- time - even after all this, we could only reduce the smell, not remove it. It took a couple months to fully go away, just from airing out.

Good luck!

EDIT: Oh, and since you say the packaging held, you might have better luck with all of these, since we had to deal with actual milk soaked into the floor, not just smell.

[tomandtish]

Also, one bit of caution (having had a friend who had something similar happen). Many car cleaning places up their charges substantially if a known biological source is part of the cleaning. Allegedly they have to throw away the brushes, etc. that they use. But when he accidentally left some ground beef in the car for 2 weeks (fell out under the seat and then they left it at the airport. It was a tube and exploded in the car....), the car cleaning places were adding about $100 to the normal charges because of it.

[kgato503]

My first car was a used car whose previous owner had been a smoker. My first task with it was cleaning it. I used a good carpet cleaner for car interiors, and SCRUBBED. Don't just spray and wipe, but work it into the fabric as well. I also made sure to wipe down the dash with a damp cleaning cloth (the dust can pick up scent), and cleaned out the air vents as best as I could. This pretty much took care of the scent. I would also second the baking soda recommendation (the open container). And, as a finishing touch, Freeze, particularly their pet formula.

Another idea is to ask someone who cleans up after police crime scenes. They have a lot of great cleaning methods for cleaning up after...unusual messes. On that train of thought, I remember that one of our Forumites had a job transporting bodies for a morgue or funeral home. If someone with better memory than I remembers who that was, you might ask them for advice (some of the pick-ups were a bit disgusting, and they would have needed to clean the vehicle afterwards).

Also, final bit of clean up advice: Chocolate and Flowers for the lovely lady whose car you did this to. And Groveling. Lots of Groveling.

[dehro]

Also, final bit of clean up advice: Chocolate and Flowers for the lovely lady whose car you did this to. And Groveling. Lots of Groveling.

heh.. we live together and I still have a few brownie points for our sailing trip/holiday, which I paid for this year. I'm good
also, as much as I appreciate the many good suggestions, in the meantime she's made such a work of it by masking the scent with perfume samples liberally sprinkled all over, that the people from the "experts in cleaning car interiors shop" where we brought the car actually couldn't identify any scent of rotten meat at all. Nevertheless, there are a few lingering odours from the various things she's used, so I'm having the car completely sanitized/cleaned at my expenses. An expensive treat that is supposed to make the car look pretty much new.

[Charlie696]

Hardcore cleaning service sounds like the best option

[dehro]

that's what we went with, and the result is indeed remarkable. problem solved

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Happy to hear. Case closed. *Walks off into sunset.*