New carpet smells unpleasant

[1980Gal]

Hoping Mumsnetters can help! We had a new carpet fitted several weeks ago and it has a persistent unpleasant odour to it that I can only describe as like a farmyard ie like manure! I can also detect that more usual new carpet smell (which i quite like) alongside it but the overriding stench is the farmyard one. Funnily enough, one of the houses I used to live had a relatively new carpet and I could also detect a similar smell, albeit more faintly. Someone i know suggested it was the glue used to fit it but the fitters left a roll of spare carpet that obviously has not come into contact with any glue and this also reeks. Does anybody have any experience of this and what did you do about it? I've been airing the house for a fortnight and it's made little difference. By the way it's a wool /polypropylene mix.

[Obeliskherder]

Check with friends/partner etc to make sure it's not just you who can smell it, and raise with carpet seller.

Apologies if this is way off the mark but could you be pregnant at all? That can make normally undectectable smells unbearable.

[Borogoves]

Are you sure the smell is coming from the carpet? Have you decorated recently?

[ApocalypseSlough]

I sometimes work in an office which had new carpets fitted a few months back and it absolutely stinks. Definitely the same farmyard smell OP describes. I'm not there enough to get used to it and it's foul 😞

[sall74]

I have to deliver to a carpet warehouse several times a week and I literally have to hold my breathe when I go in there, I don't know if I'd describe it as a farmyard/manure smell, it's more of an industrial/chemical smell but it's certainly horrible!

[greedygorb]

I see there is wool in it. This was the same as a wool carpet we had fitted. I was told by someone who said it happened to them and it was because the carpet had got wet at some point and not dried out completely. Ours smelt like a dying sheep. Our carpet shop told us we just needed to air it and we waited months and months for the smell to go. In the end we got a dehumidifier and ran it in the room for a month or so and the smell disappeared. Never went back to that carpet shop.

[1980Gal]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. It is definitely the carpet although hubbie says he can't really smell it. I will check with friends at the weekend who are coming over. Yes I am pregnant (very perceptive Obeliskherder )- 5 months - and certainly I have been quite sensitive to smells. I left that out my original message as I am convinced that there is a very strong unpleasant odour and wanted to see whether anyone else had experienced this without the pregnancy thing sidetracking the issue . On that note however, do you ladies think that my sense of smell could be so heightened that it would smell that foul without there genuinely being a nasty whiff there somewhere? It's my first pregnancy so no idea how bad this sensitivity could be (only having the baby and returning to normal will show I guess). Having said that, it's a smell I do recognise in stronger form from a carpet in our old place too. I like the dehumidifier idea- anything that may help. Had anyone else had experience of the wet wool carpet idea and any other explanations/ remedies?

[PigletJohn]

carpet that has been wet smells to me more like wet dog. I don't recognise the farmyard smell.

Woollen carpets do give off sulphur dioxide (I happen to know this because it tarnishes silver, and is known to collectors as a cause of unexpected blackening). I've never been able to smell it though.

[notarehearsal]

During my first pregnancy I couldn't actually travel in dh's car as could smell 'curry'. There had been no curry in there for as long as he's had the vehicle and I never smelt it before or after pregnancy. None else could smell it but I didn't imagine it

[Yokebe]

Try bicarb on it, leave for a while then hoover.

[DoItTooJulia]

Tap water smelled terrible to me when I was pregnant, so it could well be you're heightened sense of smell.

You could go back to the shop and smell it in there, see if it's the same? Other than that, bicarbonate used as shake and vac might help?

[1980Gal]

Thanks all. Will try the bicarb tip and if I can still smell it once baby is bornthen will go ddown the dehumidifier route. I suspect I am more sensitive to the smell than usual. Bit embarrassed to go to carpet shop as unsure how bad it really is.

[GaryCSmith]

yep, try bicarb. My wife used the same trick when she was pregnant and when we got a new carpet. It worked for her, hope it would too, for you.