On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 15:52:18 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:

:
:"Dan_Musicant" wrote in message
:
: I figure the smell will subside as the ceiling truly dries, but am
: fearful it will not. Can I get any hints or suggestions? Maybe an
: alcohol-thinned coating of shellac brushed on the lath? That's all I can
: think of but there may be better ways to deal with it. Or will that
: smell go away when things really dry out?
:
:Yuckkk! Shellac is supposed to be a good barrier for odors. I'd get it
:reasonably dry and put a coat or two on. The plaster may be harder to do,
:but a coat or two of shellac based primer inside may do it. Check out
:Zinnser and Kilz.
:
:Even if it dries out, a long rainy period may bring it back. I'd seal it
:up.
:

Thanks. I can easily access all (or very nearly all) of the lath and
plaster that was wet yesterday in that accident, and I can do these
things with that. But I don't know that I can do these things to the
entire attic. I did manage to vacuum the entire attic and clean it out
almost entirely by virtue of a couple of things:

1. A long custom-made rake.

2. A shop vac with attachments including two extenders and lieing on a
board placed over the floor joists in the attic. With those, I could
vacuum even the corners and right up to the blocking at the soffits.

Outside of some crazy kind of spraying, I don't have a chance of getting
anything on the wood at those extreme edges of the attic. Yes, it stinks
up there, but mostly I don't notice it except last night - it was pretty
bad!