Why does my kitchen always smell?

[Kat19899]

Tried to look for a cleaning section to post this but there doesn’t seem to be one.

I keep my kitchen quite clean – never dishes in the sink for long, work top wiped down, wipe inside the fridge and I often wipe down the cupboards as they can get a bit dusty.

In an attempt to help the smell, before people come over I always empty the bin, recycling and little compost caddy and wipe all out with dettol spray, close the dishwasher, remove and clean the cat’s bowl (she eats twice a day, no litter tray), often have a quick wipe of everything so also running water down the sink. But there still seems to be a smell I can’t pinpoint.

I have tried drain unblocker, washing machine cleaner, dishwasher cleaner. I’m pescatarian and starting to wonder if a food smell has penetrated something! But I have sniffed every part of the kitchen and nothing in particular smells bad (so I can’t pinpoint it) and it’s not a smell of rotting or damp, it’s just a weird smell. What can it be coming from?

I Open the window regularly, people have assured me my house doesn’t smell (I sometimes ask if they can tell I have a cat so they aren’t so “on the spot”) so this is driving me mad. I just want to have a fresh clean smelling house/kitchen

Does your washing machine smell fusty? Could it be a curtain or blind? Can you pull the cooker and white goods out and check under/ behind them?

Metal! It's honestly the strangest thing. My whole family think I'm mad because I can smell the dishes every now and again from another room 🤣

Thank God I'm not alone!

What are you wiping down surfaces with? I once had a stinking kitchen and it turned out it was the dishcloth I was using.. it was absolutely honking.

What sort of smell is it? I had a horrid ammonia type smell for ages just lingering... turned out to be the lovely scented cleaner I was using, when stank once the fragrance wore off. Am now using homemade stuff with essential oils.

Our kitchen sometimes gets a fusty smell on a summer day. Especially when the sun comes round. I think it’s a mixture of sink drain and bin. But also if you cook egg a lot or get raw egg on your worktop and don’t clean it really well then it absolutely hums. But not everyone can smell it.

same for egg in this dishwasher

Does your cat lick the floor? Strange question, but my dog does this in our kitchen (and hall, and anywhere she can find an exposed floor - she's a lunatic). The dried-on saliva stinks. I scrub the tiles with a brush and then use a steam mop.

Every time we’ve had a horrible smell it’s been a dead mouse or a rotten potato.

Look behind kick boards and under appliances (under the fridge is often where we find something)

Filter in the cooker hood? They need to be cleaned regularly, as does the hood itself, and particularly if you fry fish, which is the stinkiest thing to cook IME. I use White Company room sprays and also a cook's candle if I feel there are lingering cooking smells.

My vote also goes to the fridge drip tray. They can get mouldy.

Also clean the dishwasher filter and the extractor fan.

I had that during the pandemic. Bought some “kills viruses “ spray in Lidl, lemon scented. Lovely when freshly sprayed, an hour later it was 🤢, really stale, vile smelling.
You can make up a surgical spirit mixture 50/50 with water, spray on surfaces including floors. Only thing that kills smell in cat litter trays so should sort anything.

I don’t think my cat licks the floor but she does get food on it. I usually give it a good wipe but I think I’ll give the area a scrub.

I’m wiping down with dettol spray or sometimes antibacterial fairy liquid and a cleaning cloth.

I think I’ll struggle to pull the appliances out on my own but I will find a long stick and see if I can sweep anything out from under them! I’m just so scared of disturbing a spider 🙈

These are all great suggestions and I’ve got lots of things to try today! It’s just so strange because I can’t pinpoint the exact location of the smell

Yes to the filter in the cooker hood.

I recently changed mine - have to admit it had been years since last done, and cleaned the whole thing by dismantling as much of it as I could.

All sweet smelling now!

@Kat19899 depending on which dettol spray you are using it could be this. Like @AbbeyGailsParty said the ones that kill viruses and bacteria are the worst for an "after smell". Interestingly I started using them in the pandemic too which is where I noticed it.

Grease trap in the cooker hood....when was the last time it was cleaned or filter changed?

Check your plug overflow by filling sink and letting water run through it. Mine was blocked so not only stank, but wouldn't have worked.

I know that weird dishwasher smell which lingers on cutlery and plates etc. anything which has had egg on leaves a nasty smell. I can never drink out of a glass which has been in a dishwasher with eggy plates or carbonara pans etc. yuck.

re smells generally. This is what I do in mine (when I can be arsed, to be honest sometimes I don’t care if smells start because I’m sometimes too knackered to do deep cleaning at weekends and put it off):

wipe surfaces after every meal.

Empty bin every couple of days even if not full and quick wipe with antibac spray or wipe. Clean kitchen cloths every few days on a 60 degree wash min. I sometimes soak them in disinfectant first too.

Every week clean the sink area then sluice soda crystals and hot water down and leave for as long as packet says then sluice again. I put a squirt of bleach down after that and leave for half an hour.

Every month clean the dishwasher: take out filters and clean them out. Do a v hot wash with dishwasher cleaner (and no dishes!). Top up with salt etc.

I fill the bin with v hot water and washing up liquid wirh a bit of disinfectant every few weeks and leave it for a while then give it a good scrub inside and out with a cloth. Let it dry out completely before new bag goes in.

cooker hood filter gets cleaned when I sniff it and recoil. 😆 maybe every month? Depends on what cooking we’ve done.

oven gets done once in a blue moon.

once a year I wipe down the disgusting tops of my kitchen cupboards, they will be full of grease and dust. Can’t be arsed to do it more often and don’t want to leave grease coated paper on the top cos I think it’s fire risk.

I’ve never really had a smelly fridge, not sure why as others seem to. I only wipe it inside when it looks dirty to be honest.

Really the main smell culprits in my kitchen are the sink drains and the bin. if they’re ok it generally smells ok.

I do notice a particular smell in houses with cats, sorry.

What sort of flooring do you have?
What's underneath?

If your house is old and the floorboards are damaged or the flooring is trapping something- could that be it?

Can you describe the smell?
Dead mice are pretty vile to smell
Is it a rotting smell?

Hope you get to the bottom of this - I know what you mean when you clean everything and it's still there

Have you taken the racks out of the dishwasher and cleaned the back surfaces of them. I find grease tends to congeal back there where you can't see it, no matter what cleaner I use. Stale grease smells awful.

I have a concrete floor with underlay and laminate, don’t think there could be anything under there.

Yesterday I cleaned the cooker hood, front grill and filter. I’m ashamed to say it wasn’t on my radar at all so I haven’t done it in five years 😳😳. It actually didn’t improve the smell but I will definitely be buying new filters

Something that does seem to have helped is putting a dishwasher tablet in the plug hole and slowly pouring boiling water. Don’t have any soda crystals.
The smell has definitely improved, now just get a faint whiff when I’m near the sink. I’ve inspected and noticed there is some black gunk just under the bit that holds the plug 🤢.
I’m surprised because I tried drain unblocker last week. Any tips for getting at this gross gunk or will I need to unscrew the pipes?