Weird smell, what can it be?

[BanannaMan]

Could be dead mice if there is somewhere they can get under the floor.
Mom gets killed and the babies die in the nest. Terrible smell for a weeks unless you can find/get to them to get rid of.
Right time of year for that.

[pegasus]

Just my tuppence worth,

Is your room painted?

If so, when was the last time you painted it and can you remember what type of paint it was?

There was something on Telly last week about some paints smelling like sour milk especially in hotter weather.

Just a thought

p

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by pegasus

Just my tuppence worth,

Is your room painted?

If so, when was the last time you painted it and can you remember what type of paint it was?

There was something on Telly last week about some paints smelling like sour milk especially in hotter weather.

Just a thought

p

Not just a pretty face, aye

[Littlepeahead]

It was painted about 3 years ago. Dulux on the walls and woodwork. Water based, which means that the old yellowy varnish on the woodwork is all coming through on the banister making the woodwork look like I live in a house with a heavy smoker. But if you get up close to the wood and have a sniff the smell isn't any worse. Stu said the smell reminds him of the hallway at the sheltered housing his nan lived in - the old folks there were not at the nappies stage, but the place had that vaguely institutional hospital smell.

As for the cats and their mice, I know they aren't stashing them anywhere as when they do get off their lazy furry bums and catch something they are so pleased with themselves they either lay out the dead mouse in the middle of the floor as a gift for my arrival home, or bring it in alive and present it to me with much yowling and showing off.

My parents had a smell in their house which smelt very much like a gas leak. Called gas board, they came out and said it did it smell like a gas leak despite it being in an area where there was no gas.
Eventually found a dead mouse.

Hope it's something like that rather than a broken pipe.

[Jayneflakes]

Check your fruit and veg rack, a rotten potato can produce an alarming smell that I have not encountered since my days at university. Other things to look for are unwashed tramps living in the cupboard under the stairs. This may sound rediculous, but a mentally ill aunt of mine had this problem for a while. It did take some sorting out.

Do you have vent bricks above drains/soakaways/cat toilets etc? If you do you may try blocking the vent up, but being careful to ensure that you still have some ventilation.

Worst smell I've encountered in a flat was the Fridge drip tray. Smelled like a strong and repulsive parmesan cheese. Worth checking it out, though I'd imagine it would be reasonable localised to the kitchen.

Actually, it was between that and the dead mouse I found underneath the hot water tank.

[dizzyblonde]

When I was a student(somewhere in the depths of time) I lived in an old listed house, which had been used as bedsits but were being converted into self contained flats.
Anyway, there was this young chap who used to really annoy everyone with very loud music, and falling over drunk after a night on the tiles.




One night he left his flat door open, and was sparko on his sofa with a half eaten kebab by his side. The 'committee' of residents decided to play a little game of hide the raita....you know that little bag of yoghurt and cucumber.


We hid it behind his radiator, and was accidentally forgotten about. He kept complaining of this stinky cheese odour in his flat, and tbh, he was a tart so smelling it above the aftershave, it must have been rotten.


Check behind your radiators

[Littlepeahead]

Ha ha, I don't have radiators!

Brand new fridge a couple of weeks ago so definitely not that. Mr LPH often complains about rancid cheese in the fridge, he says rancid, he means 'ripe', and still probably a week away from my idea of being edible.

Yesterday the smell had got a bit better though not disappeared completely. 3 things had changed so of course I can't pinpoint the cause.

1) I scrubbed the bottom 3 stairs of the stair carpet in case something had been spilled on it I wasn't aware of by the nephews while running round the room.

2) I moved the armchair into the conservatory as that was located in the area where the smell is strongest - but the smell hasn't now appeared in the conservatory so I can't think it is that something has been spilled onto the chair and made that smell.

3) We've had very heavy rain - so if Phil's theory on drains drying out/cracking is correct then the heavy rain may have made a difference. There are two man hole covers outside that living room window suggesting that the drains run under the house in that area.

Maybe Pete the previous owner really did shove a couple of bodies under there when he re-laid the drive - I mean we always joke about these things but my friend Dinah went missing when we were 18 and years later her body turned up under Peter Tobin's patio.