Help!! What stinks?!

[Ismellasmellysmell]

Dear god help me solve the mystery of my smelly bedroom. I'm at a total loss

Woke up today and bedroom smells funny. Definitely coming from this room. When you walk into the bedroom from another room you can smell it. I had a panic as last night my cat ran in to hide from the hoover and once years ago she pood on the floor- must have been too frightened to go to her tray. But I looked everywhere and it's not that. It smells different, I can't put my finger on it. Like rotting food? Fruit maybe? I thought maybe the bedding so I stripped it and washed it. Smell is still there. Windows have been open all day.

I've looked everywhere incase my toddler has done something bonkers like post a banana into an underwear drawer or something.

What in god's name is making this smell?!

Anything in the gutter above the window? Dead bird?

We used to get rotting mice under the floorboards quite a lot - sweet, musty smell - made think of rotting cabbage. But it'll go quite quickly!

You ask what a dead mouse (or similar) smells like - it smells like when you open your kitchen bin. I have cats, they bring in critters so I've smelt it quite a few times. We once had that stench in the spare room and I found the remains of a rabbit under the spare room bed.

You have a cat...

If it is a rodent type creature and you can't locate it, it will take about two weeks to decompose and stop smelling.

Dead rodent doesn't smell sweet. We had one. A tiny shrew DCat brought in and wedged in a corner of the cupboard under the stairs. It reeked like the worst over-ripe stinky french cheese way past its sell by date, left out of the fridge in baking hot sun in an airless room. I was dementedly mopping the hall floor and scouring the downstairs loo until I found it.

My guess is that your toddler has gifted a piece of cutted up apple to your bedside table/gap between bedframe and mattress.

Our cat is 11 years old and never caught a creature in her life. She's a very frightened little thing and doesn't go out. We're in a top floor flat now and she doesn't go out so couldn't have found one.

@Twelvetimes

But yes, I'm worried it's a mouse under the floor or walls perhaps. Would that happen in a top floor flat with no previous evidence of any creatures? We've been here 5 years and no signs of anything before.

If it is a rodent type creature and you can't locate it, it will take about two weeks to decompose and stop smelling.

Omg just noticed this part. Two weeks 🤦🏼‍♀️

Do you have a shower or basin that’s seldom used? In hot weather the water in the trap can evaporate and that causes a nasty smell.

Maybe check on your neighbours in the floor below

We had a dead rat under the floorboards once. We couldn't get at it, so just had to wait for it to decompose. I don't think it took as long as 2 weeks, although it did get worse over a few days before it got better. And I was wondering if I could smell it for quite a while after it had gone.

I agree with a PP that it was a bit like very ripe cheese, but to me there was a faint rubbery tinge to it. Smells are so subjective, they're hard to describe.

When we have dead mice I always think they smell sweet. One curled up in DH's cap in the wardrobe and died. That one took quite some hunting down!!

Lol, I was going to say the same at the mention of being on an upper floor flat!

Do you know what room you're directly above OP? I'd maybe knock on the neighbours and see if they have the same problem or are doing something different to be causing the smell.

That really does sound like a dead mouse unfortunately. Have you had a really good look under the bed. My cat left me a little present once in a shoe under the bed.

I had the same thought! But about the old boy through the wall from us 😬

Dealing with toddler and dinner time just now and then we'll check on neighbours!

I know it'll just end up being a mouse but the thought still crossed my mind

If it's a mouse and it's in the wall or under the floorboards, what do we do?

Just camp out on the sofa bed in our living room until the smell goes? I don't relish the idea of ripping the place apart

Check your Slippers, have you stood on anything and walked it through the room? I'm sorry if I missed the fact you pulled furniture out, you've already changed the bed. Anything on your curtains, blinds. Sometimes where a smell is, isn't where its coming from. Wheres your laundry basket? I can smell the tiniest of smells it cracks people up when I go about sniffing haha. Once there was a death smell in my room, it was a pair of old Slippers. Has your cat used the tray and there's random cat litter with something on it around?
We've had mice below the carpet before you would know, its vile, death smell like a death fart x a million 😂😂

Waiting it out is the cheaper way and least destructive option, unless you can pin point where exactly the smell is coming from. It could be a few days it could be a couple of weeks, it will spend how big the dead thing is and how warm and humid the spot is.

Pinpointing the exact stop will be hard, as the smell may come out via a gap not necessarily right above the source.

One other thought, has the chimney been swept regularly? If not deposits there can cause a horrid smell, particularly after rain. If rain ingresses into the chimney that could also be a cause of the smell, although I would expect you to smell that at the fireplace downstairs too.

We live in the country and get dead mice all the time, the also eat through appliance water-pipes, little bastards....amazing how such a small creature creates such a smell....

Defo check on ur neighbour too. If no response, smell through a letterbox, sounds grim but there's no mistaking it. Hopefully not.

Keep the windows open and it'll fade esp with the warm temp.

If you turn the heating up high it helps to decompose it faster, sorry.

🤢 too hot where we are at the moment for that. My toddler would really suffer. We can shut the bedroom off with window wide open and sleep on our sofa bed for as long as we need to I guess

Their was a weird smell in my son's room. I could only smell it as I went in and out. Turns out it was the towel hanging over the door. He'd spilled some tea & used the towel to clean it up!. The milk made it smell like farts.

I'm not sure it'd very a decomposing mouse. I found such a thing under our living room chair - obviously been there a while and no smell.

Have you got any bags in area? Worth looking in them in case you've left food in one.

Other thought it's not like a burning slightly fishy smell is it? If so, smell near sockets in case it's an electrical problem, and switch off.

Neighbours are alive and kicking. Need to get toddler to bed to properly investigate. We've looked under all furniture and pulled things out but need to really have a good root around once he's asleep.

I had this, it was a dead rat under the floorboards

Op, I can categorically say it is not a dead rodent. Anyone who has had a dead rodent knows there is nothing sweet about it. It is a rancid acrid smell. It’s bad. Very bad. It is not sweet. In any way shape nor form.