To ask you to help me find the mystery smell in my house?

[peachgreen]

My house smells like sour milk. It's HORRIBLE. I cannot for the life of me pinpoint what it is and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of what it could be, especially if you've had a similar issue.

It smells worst in the hallway, lounge and the dining room, gets slightly better in the kitchen and utility room. Downstairs toilet smells fine. It isn't coming from the fridge or freezer, or the sinks or dishwasher. The house is 1950s with solid poured concrete walls internally and externally so there's nothing in the walls. There is a big "basement" under the floor which is inaccessible without tearing up the carpet - but the smell isn't stronger lower down. And no, I haven't spilled milk anywhere!

We're generally a pretty clean household although I'll confess that with an excitable 1 year old I'm not quite as on top of things as I would usually be, but we're talking a week's worth of dust, not a month's worth of old food!

HELP. It's driving me bonkers.

Potatoes rotting can smell VILE?

I assume you've pulled out all settees and chairs etc ? And looked behind cupboards ?

We once defrosted a chicken breast in the microwave, somehow forgot all about it. Back in the days when we didn't use the microwave much it sat and purified over a week or so. 🤮

You checked in there?

I would suspect that your 1 year old has managed to hide a beaker/bottle of milk somewhere.

Rotten potato fallen down the back of somewhere. You’d be amazed at the smell from them

Dead mouse somewhere under the floorboards?

Or is there a bottle ina bag you've not used for a while.

Have you pissed anyone off recently?

Bottle/beaker of milk from dc put somewhere (look for the most unlikely places)

Yes yes yes to a potato again as dc taken one and left it somewhere

Mouse, bird, rat, etc under floorboards, behind fireplace

Haven’t any leaking appliances and damp is getting into the floorboards, up the walls? But I’m guess the smell would be worse in the kitchen then though

Beyond that I’m stumped!

It could be your light fittings (if they are old!) We moved into a house once which smelt putrid - turned out to be the old ceiling light fittings..... (can't remember why it had happened, something to do with getting hot maybe?)

I should have read the thread first- all of my suggestions have already been mentioned🤦‍♀️

Have you or DP/DH spilled milk which has gone though floor boards and is now festering nicely? Or has DP/DH spilled babies milk barely wiped it up, not told you has baby spilt a bottle of milk and you didn't realise, thought he/she had drunk it? and it has soaked into something and is smelling awful.

Check your understairs cupboard for mouse droppings - the smell if one has died is very unpleasant.

Off potatos - yes have experienced that ☹️

Cleaner here - I found a hard boiled egg under a customer's couch yesterday!! The dh calmly said he wondered where it had gone!!

We kept having a disgusting smell in our hall but it kept coming and going and it turned out it was the switch to turn on the electricity for the shower. We discovered it was the source when it exploded on us and started smoking so I would make sure to check all your switches/plugs!!

Ahh thanks everyone!

Checked behind and under all furniture that I can - nothing. Definitely not a lost bottle - we only have 4 in rotation so we'd notice if one was missing. Checked the microwave - I did once leave a coffee in there for about three days, back in the crazy newborn days! Have checked my larder cupboard for potatoes but I might take everything out just to double check - the smell doesn't seem to be coming from there but you never know and I do recall mouldy potatoes being the worst smell on EARTH. I'll see if I can find a rogue patch of carpet that smells of milk but it's definitely worse in the hall and dining room which have hard floors. Understairs cupboard smells fine but this is a good excuse to clean it out anyway so I'll try that at the weekend!

I don't THINK it's electrical - from memory that's more fishy than sour milk - but we have had some issues with things tripping lately so it could be! How would I go about identifying the source? Sniffing all the light fittings?!

@Oddsocksandmeatballs argh, this is what I'm afraid of. Would a dead mouse smell like sour milk?

@AnotherOriginalUsername Not that I'm aware of but this is excellent revenge if I have!

Once my toddler DS hid a beaker of milk behind a radiator. Jesus Christ it stunk to high heavens. My bet would be on either the toddler has spilt milk somewhere without you realising or he has hidden a bottle/beaker of it somewhere.

All your babies must be more advanced than mine as she flatly refuses to hold her own bottle so I don't think it's that - she only has water in her beaker as she's dairy free at the mo.

my parents had a bad sour milk smell in their hall right in middle it was strongest, it came and went we couldn't spot a pattern, the source was not identified for some years they had an old style radiator in hall which was slowly leaking and the underlay was rotting, the radiator location and rotting underlay were not where smell was worst so we don't know why but new underlay sorted the problem, in fact underlay was replaced and then took months to notice that bad smell has gone

@Toooldtocareanymore That's a good shout but all our carpets and underlay are brand new except for in our bedroom, and it doesn't smell.

Have just messaged DH and informed him that we're doing some detective work this evening to try and find it. He's delighted, obviously.

Banana in a coat pocket?

Last time I had this is was the fuseboard.
There had been an odd smell in the hall for a couple of weeks but I couldn't trace it and couldn't quite place what exactly it could be like you can with some smells anyway suddenly the power blew and when the electrician came he was horrified to have found most of the fuseboard melted.

Ho told me we were incredibly lucky it had blown the power when it did which alerted us to a problem instead of continuing to heat as it was about to and would have burnt the whole house down.

It was so bad he asked to take it with him to show his workmates!

The worst part is he said there was no fault and he couldn't see an actual cause but said sometimes they just do that and the lucky ones are like us where the power trips before the fire starts.

From personal experience. Bleurgh

I once had a dead mouse in the loft, directly above the longe light fitting. Took ages to figure it out as the smell seemed to be coming from the middle of the room! Good luck