Where is this awful smell coming from? (Any ideas?)

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice.

I've just moved into a new house a couple of months ago and there is a very lovely bedroom with a nice big window and a good view, and I was hoping to make that my new living room in time for Christmas.

My problem is the room stinks!

It's hard to describe what the smell is like but it's a very dry and 'warm' smell, a little bit like sawdust, a little bit cheesy, a little bit like hot dust or something. That's the best description I can give.

I've smelt a similar smell before: I once bought a house with a strip light and at first I didn't notice how dusty the bulb was, and every time I turned it on I got this awful smell.

The weird thing is the smell doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular. There are a couple of strip lights built into a cupboard, and they do seem to make the smell worse when they're on. But the smell seems to come whether they're on or off, and if I sniff the bulbs up close they don't smell at all.

The room is upstairs, above the garage, but the garage smells fine. The room has one big window, and there's no smell out the window. The room has loads of built-in wardrobes and cupboards. None of them smell inside. There's a small attic above it, but there's no smell in the attic.

There is one cupboard that is very smelly, but it's a fairly different smell to the main smell and I've tried taping up the cracks in the cupboard and it makes no difference.

When I first moved in, I cleaned all the walls and cupboards, and had the carpet cleaned. The smell seemed to go away for about a day, but came back again.

Whenever I air the room with open windows, it seems to go away a little, then come back again.

The next thing I did was I took the carpet out, and the underlay. The smell seemed to go away quite a lot, but never completely. I noticed that the carpet didn't actually seem to smell too bad when I took it out, and the underlay didn't smell at all!

This is weird though because if the carpet and underlay don't smell, then the smell can't be coming from under the floorboards. But that's the only place I can think the smell might come from.

Then I looked at the estate agent's brochure again and noticed the carpet was different only a few months ago, so they obviously changed the carpet just to sell the house.

Realising the carpet may not have been that bad, I gave it a good sniff and sure enough after it had aired a bit it didn't smell at all. So perhaps it's not coming from under the floor? (Or is it?)

I know that at one time there were mice in the garage below, as I found a few traps in there when I moved in. But that is going back a long time (house has been empty for years) and they're all gone now. I wondered if the smell could maybe be dead mice somewhere? But then where? I've sniffed everywhere and I just can't seem to find where the smell is coming from.

Anyone got any ideas at all?

 

Check the heating/ventilation system.

 

might be mold or mildew

 

Don't all English houses smell funny anyway? :tongue:

 

There was this house I was renting with one of my friends for while. After living there for almost a year, the landlord decided that he didn't want my dogs living there and kicked me out. A month later he kicked my friend out for no good reason. My friend just happened to find a dead skunk in the middle of the road as he was heading back to get his last load of stuff out of the house. This house had a small crawl space under it, that was only accessible from the basement, and hardly big enough for an adult to fit in. Well, I'm sure everyone can guess what happened. According to one of our other friends who worked for the landlord, it took them about three months to figure out where the smell was coming from.

 

There's a dead body under the floorboards or behind the walls!





Bustramp

 

Put your nose by the window, sometimes window sills and screens get a funny smell if they need cleaned, the light may need a good cleaning too.

 

Did the previous owners have pets? Cat pee takes FOREVER to get rid of.

 

^ She's right, fortunately for me my male cats are fixed, & don't spray...

I just got done having a hissy fit though because I spilt irish cream on my carpet..Spent over an hour on the floor with water floating it, & towels sopping it up. Think I got it almost completely out. No sticky left in it.

If you do determine it is old cat urine smell, I've read that white wine, white vinegar, & baking soda mix followed by hot soapy water does the trick..Of course, the carpet would need to be pulled up again.

Hopefully you find out it's something localised and easy to get rid of. Good luck!