My living room smells of damp all of a sudden

[duod]

Basically the title and we’re not sure why!

(we did drop a bottle of baby formula milk on the carpet a few days prior to the smell but we did clean it).

Ive checked all the walls, under the carpet, under the windowsill and used a carpet cleaner but the damp-smell still lingers. Any ideas? And is it the formula milk?

Could be that the carpet cleaner wet the underlay and it hasn't dried

Must be the milk - perhaps carpet needs professionally cleaning

Do you having rising damp do you think? Also, check no pipework is leaking because that happened to me 5 months ago and it was awful, the ceiling was slowly filling with water and one night (it was quite late 11pm and I was dozing on sofa ready to go up) and it started dripping on my head. Gave me a hell of a fright and then had to put buckets down as too late to phone for help. Then I had a horrible feeling the buckets were going to overflow and I couldn't sleep for thinking about it.

Have you got a fireplace/chimney? Rain coming down the chimney?

I'd bet on the milk. I think it's bicarbonate of soda which absorbs smells . I'd try putting this all over the spill area and leaving it for a while, possibly overnight then hoovering as a first step before you worry about sudden damp in the house.

It's the milk now soured

Did you clean up the milk in the same way as squash or wine? Because milk spills need to be thoroughly cleaned in a certain way otherwise they smell more and more disgusting.

Yes unfortunately I did! I tried baking soda but it’s only helped a bit. Any suggestions?

I tried this last night, hoovered this morning and let the air circulate by opening the garden door but still smells

You might need to invest in a specialist enzyme cleaner as milk has proteins in it that break down to produce those smells. Have a look in the supermarket under spot stain removal and you might find something. I've read that sometimes one for urine can sometimes work (both are protein based) so a pet one might be a possibility.