(Preface: The majority of our accommodations in New Zealand are AirBnBs and this story is of such an accommodation)

We had just landed in Auckland tired, hungry, a bit cranky and not looking forward to the hour drive to our accommodations in Hamilton, NZ. By the time we disembarked, cleared customs, picked up our luggage, and finally picked up the keys to our rental car it was already the middle of the night.

For some inexplicable reason, I was under the impression that driving in NZ would be just like back home. Boy was I wrong.

For the uninitiated, in New Zealand you drive on the left side of the road from the right side of the car. Weary eyed, I assured Samantha with confidence that it wasn’t a big deal and I could easily handle it, all the while worries quietly building up inside my head. I just kept telling myself, “Left side, left side, left side.”

Leaving the car rental lot was no problem, but let me tell you, that first roundabout (in a country filled with roundabouts) was a doozy to say the least. Blinkers going crazy, windshield wipers freaking out, Samantha yelling, “To the left!” That’ll wake up even the most tired of travelers.

Luckily the rest of the drive to Hamilton went off without a hitch. Other that the pitch dark, headlights that only worked for 6 feet in front of me, high beams that automatically dim with oncoming traffic (freaks you out the first time), and my trusty navigator falling asleep every few minutes, it was all good.

A couple hours later, we finally pulled up to our AirBnb. Just so you could have an idea of the layout of where we were staying I have included a sketch of the house below.

For our 3-day stay, our host had informed us that they would be out of town on holiday and would not be returning during our visit. Samantha was the first to walk in as I was unloading the car. “It’s really nice in there but it smells kinda weird” she said as she walked back out to help bring in the luggage. Walking in a smell I can only describe as intensely musty hit me like a stinky wall. The next 45 minutes consisted of us walking around our studio smelling everything. I imagine we must have looked crazy.

We decided it was coming from an oil fragrance diffuser thingy and a weird toilet puck. I promptly put them outside and tried to fall asleep. Face buried deep in my pillow.

It’s funny how your brain chooses to ignore or gets accustomed to weird smells after you’ve been exposed to them for a long period of time because by the morning we thought it had disappeared. Again, boy were we wrong.

After going out and coming back, we came to the grim realization that the smell had only gotten worse.

Over the next day we just sprayed air freshener every 5 minutes while inside our apartment in a meager attempt to mask the unidentifiable odor

The next morning after coming back from an outing, we pulled into the driveway and see our host unloading the contents of his truck into the garage. After introducing ourselves he tells us that they came back early from their holiday because of poor weather.

As we’re walking into the guest house he yells out, “There hasn’t been a weird smell in there or anything has there?”. “Well now that you mention it, yeah there has been” I reply. He goes on to tell me that he found a dead cat in his garage and it must have been there for days. He apologizes, laughs and says, “It’s not my cat and I haven’t see any posters up!”

We didn’t hold it against our host and other than the smell we had a lovely time at his home and in Hamilton. In addition I can confidently tell you that from now on, anytime we are driving down a road with the windows down and that familiar smell creeps into my nostrils, I will given Samantha and glance and say, “Yup something’s dead around here!”