An Alabama city clerk said she has been complaining for four years about an awful smell in her ninth-floor office inside Mobile’s Government Plaza.
Now she knows the source: dead rats and pigeons had accumulated behind the wall in her office.
"It was like three dead bodies were somewhere," Lambert told AL.com. "The odor was so bad, it would kill you."
Lambert quickly relocated to a vacant office.
The County Commission "just became aware of the situation" in Lambert's office, spokeswoman Dena Pollard told The Associated Press.
"We are in the process of evaluating the issue and planning on how to proceed," Pollard said.
Lambert told AL.com that she began experiencing headaches and sinus issues while she was at work.
Mobile County, which owns Government Plaza, spent $3.2 million in 2014 to fix leaks that were soaking the building’s atrium after rainstorms, AL.com reported.
But Lambert said that, in her opinion, simply "diverted water in another direction," leading to an outbreak of leaks in her office area.
She first heard pigeons in the walls at about the same time, she told AL.com.
"The next thing you know, we got gnats and blow flies coming out the vents," Lambert said.
When work crews cut out a hole into a portion of a wall on the eastern side of Lambert's office last month, "feathers flew out." That was when the dead rats and pigeons were discovered, she said.
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