Help me! I hate smelly houses, and I’ve just moved into one.
To be fair, it’s not that bad. It’s a big old Victorian house, so I kind of expected the odd funny smell. The kitchen smells a little musty, which I think might be down to some damp behind the dishwasher. No problem, I can solve that one myself with a little DIY.
Anyway… the bathroom has an odd smell I can’t identify. It’s sort of sickly sweet. The room isn’t dirty or damp - it could certainly do with a make-over, but that’s more to do with the previous occupants taste in tiles. The walls, tile grout and sealant all look pretty clean, which leaves, I guess, some kind of drainage problem?
It isn’t the same as a dead animal smell, which someone else suggested to me. I’ve had dead mice/rats under the floor in previous homes, and nothing can mistake that particular aroma.
This may be overly simplistic, but…have you cleaned it yet? I mean, really cleaned it, with your own cleaners? Have you looked in the back of each cabinet, and maybe look up to the underside of the countertop while you’re in there as well? Are the cabinets flush to the wall, or is it possible something got dropped over the back and is stuck between the back of the cabinet and the wall? (Can you tell I’ve had toddlers? My cabinets look flush from the outside, but there is actually a couple of inches if you reach your hand inside. Took the kiddo about 20 seconds to figure that out and start dropping things back there for fun.)
I’m wondering if there’s an old stinky air freshener stuck somewhere, or a forgotten bottle of old lady perfume.
It was cleaned by a ‘professional’ cleaner just before I moved in (I saw her, so I’m not taking the landlord’s word for it). Now, I’m not saying she didn’t miss anything, but there aren’t any fitted cupboards, and the units and tiles are flush to the wall. So it looks pretty water and dirt ‘tight’. I can have at it with some extreme bleach but not sure it will solve my problem.
Ah…Does it smell kind of fruity sickly sweet? Do you know Fabuloso cleaner? Don’t be fooled by their descriptions; it smells like diabetic death with cotton candy on top. I wonder if she used that and it’s not entirely off gassed yet.
I’d clean it with my regular stuff and see if that settles it. If not, then you have a detective game on your hands.
Have you tried snaking the pipes? When I used to manage apartments, I once discovered that the source of an odd odor was from the sink drain. I pulled out a giant blob of what looked like equal parts mold, hair and either toothpaste or soap scum (maybe both).
It could also be something your vents, but a dead something would be the most likely source of smell there.
Other than that… all kinds of things can be going on behind the walls or under the floor. Tile can really hide that. I’ve heard stories of tile that looked just fine until someone leaned against a wall and fell through because the wall behind the tile had rotted away.
What everyone else said, plus, painting everything with a good coat of Kilz stain and odour paint before doing any other painting. We somehow ended up with a house that had been smoked in (we think it was two owners ago, so they didn’t tell us about it when we were looking), and I had to paint the inside of all the cupboards and closets with Kilz to get the lingering smoke smell out of the house.
So, a really good, thorough cleaning (sickly sweet smell makes me think you might have some old pee lingering somewhere), and then painting with Kilz. If that doesn’t do it, buy a new house.
Another place you can get hidden nasty stuff causing odors: the overflow drain/opening in the basin. Not the one in the bottom, but one higher up. We had a bad odor in the bathroom of a rental and finally traced it to that.
We used a narrow bottle brush to scour the inside as best we could, then used a spray bottle to spritz into the opening with a 50% bleach solution. Did this a couple times a day for a week or so, and the odor never came back.
My bathrooms have drainage holes on the floor. The problem is that they are connectred to the sewers in such a way that the leech bad smells. Nothing a bit of scotch tape doesn’t fix,
I’m going to try a bit of plug hole/pipe cleaning and see what happens. I’ve read that a combo of baking soda, hot water and vinegar is very effective and non toxic.
Is the smell localized to anything like the bathtub? When the drain in my bathtub gets dry, it will smell funky. I can alleviate that by running water in the tub.
Dunno. A friend of mine gave me a bottle she tried once and didn’t like (for obvious reasons!) I have a large kitchen/dining room with lots of windows, so I can get away with using it in there, but I don’t dare approach the bathroom with it.
It actually cleans very well. But I don’t think I’ll be purchasing it when this bottle runs out, regardless.
