When I was younger, my family lived in a tiny apartment complex.
It was a bit cramped for the four of us but we somehow managed to make it work.
The saving grace was our powerful air conditioner, which thankfully kept the majority of the apartment content even with through the harsher winters and summers. Sadly, at one point I remember the system all of a sudden started producing this gross odor. It got so bad at one point we couldn’t even turn on the air conditioner because the smell overpowered and filled the whole apartment. My father became very distraught and reached out to our landlord to see if there was something we could do. The landlord assured my father that he would have someone from the local HVAC company come and check out the air conditioner right away. Three weeks later the HVAC company finally arrived, apologizing for the delay as they had been extra busy with customers recently. The technician immediately went to work and proceeded to check all of the components of the system. When he reached the cutout space where the filter went he peeked inside before giving a yelp and jumping back a few steps. My father quickly went to look and then ran to the kitchen to get the dishwashing gloves. He reached into the cutout and pulled out a big fuzzy rat by the tail. It had somehow gotten trapped inside the cutout and died from lack of food. After removing the rat and giving the area a good cleaning, the air conditioner began working like usual and the smell was completely gone. We were so grateful and thanked the HVAC technician who in turn thanked my father for helping dispose of the rat.
