Hi All,
Newly widowed here who don't know a lot about cars and need help. When my husband passed, I started driving around his 2015 Honda Jazz (known as Honda Fit in other countries). Recently, there was a small lizard that was in the car. I was trying to get it out, but it kept running away. My brother in law said to just leave it be and that if it found it's way in, it will find its way out. Well, it didn't and died and now the car smells like dead lizard. Tried to look around for it under the carpets, seats, aircon filter etc but to no success. Smell only comes out when aircon is on. With the sniff test, we found that the smell came strongest from the aircon vents, specially the front windshield defroster vent. My brother in law says that this is a super big job that entails removing all panels and he doesnt trust that it can be done properly without people scratching the car, breaking something, or putting it pack together wrongly and thus introducing a shaking sound when put together. (I live in the Philippines so yes properly trained mechanics are very rare) He suggests just waiting for the lizard to properly dry out and decompose until there is no more smell which he basically says probably means having to live through months with the smell.

I'm concerned that leaving the dead lizard will just attract other creatures like maggots or flies who will feed on the dead lizard and thus introducing more problems. But mostly, I really want to find a way to get rid of the smell and hopefully an easy way to remove the lizard. My late husband really loved that car, he cleaned it every week and in fact, it still smells like new (or at least it did, until the dead lizard). It is one of the strongest memories I have of my husband and I would really be sad if that clean car smell will now be replaced by the dead lizard smell. I am guessing eventually that smell will stick to the car interiors. Is my brother in law right? Is there anything I can do? Or do you guys have a step by step guide on how to remove the panels and access the front windshield defroster vent? Maybe if he sees it is easy enough, he will be willing to do it for me or I could do it...I don't know. Please help, thank you for your time.

PS: I just realized I posted this in the wrong thread, but I could not find the delete button. So sorry for the inconvenience