A mother was sickened to find a dead dog under her house after investigating a nasty smell.

Karen Stevens, 29, said the smell had got so bad in the recent hot weather she was unable to stand on her doorstep or leave the front door open of her house in Winstree, Basildon.

When the smell first started, Mrs Stevens and her neighbours thought it was the bins or the drains.

Over the next few days the stench got progressively worse and Mrs Stevens reported it to Basildon Council.

In the end she decided she couldn't wait for environmental health services to arrive and, using a garden rake, dragged the animal out from under her house.

Her children, Natasha, six, and Shawn, three, screamed out as they saw the whippet-type dog emerge from the hole.

Mrs Stevens, said: "I think it must have been hurt, possibly hit by a car and crawled under there to die.

"There's always rubbish underneath the houses. When I first started raking around I found a child's shoe and thought the worst."

Plans are afoot by Basildon Council to block the spaces under the buildings which were built by the Commission for New Towns.

After Mrs Stevens dragged the dog out she called Basildon Council. Staff quickly came and took the animal's corpse away.

Nasty niff - Karen Stevens and her children Natasha and Shawn got a nasty suprise when they explored the gap underneath their house

Picture: ANDY PALMER

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