Asking for help identifying this smell?

[drivingmeupthebend]

What is this smell in my bedroom?
Sorry to be graphic, but it literally smells like dead people.
It’s coming from my bedside table area.
It smells slightly like a sanitary towel bin which needs emptying.
I’ve smelt myself and it’s not me, wondered if the puppy was coming into her first season, it’s not her, shined a torch behind cabinet and nothing there.
So hard to describe, but almost like when someone vomits blood?
Basically a rotting flesh smell.

In fact, it kind of reminds me of the weird urine smell when you’ve eaten asparagus too.
And for what it’s worth I’m not a pee, poo, vomit or period troll.

Have you got a cat? Sounds like the smell of something dead. My cat likes to leaves things under the sofa and I only usually notice once it starts to honk!! ...it's not that my house keeping is awful-it's just that I only pull the sofas out every now and then!! (Honest!!)

A dead rodent in the wall or under the floor?

No cat. Just a puppy.

It’s a fairly new build so not entirely sure if there could be a rodent anywhere. It’s driving me potty.

Is there something that’s fallen behind one of the draws in the cabinet?

Are you in an old house with a chimney ? If the cowling has blown off then birds can get trapped and presumably die ?..or maybe a rat / rodent in the roof space ?

Do you have a lamp on the table? We once had a light fitting that began to stink. It was made of a weird plastic & smelt when it’d been on for a while & got warm.

Sometimes it's just a spill....I'd move everything off your bedside table, clean it all and the table...and look underneath it...and the bed. One splash of something that then goes off can smell awful.

Are there floorboards that something yuck could be under?

If you can't find it, an open box of bicarb is good at absorbing smells.

I do have a lamp but it’s never used.
Got a radio alarm clock next to it.
I’m randomly sniffing stuff in the room and nothing smells of the vile smell.
Sniffed bedding, bed, carpet, pillows, headboard, inside the drawers and all smell fine.
Just a general odour from this area.

New paint?

Dead thing. They smell cabbagey at first, then pissy, then rotting fleshy voice of bitter experience thanks to the cat

In the loft space maybe? Or under the floorboards. Trust me, it's a dead thing.

Have you recently broken up with someone? You might be a victim of the old "stuff prawns in the curtain pole to get back at the ex" trick

Almost certainly a dead thing under the floor. If so, it will disappear in about 6 weeks. But is vile in a sickly sweet rotting way in the meantime.

Definitely a ghost, your house is haunted.
Sorry.

Oh god! Are you me?
We've come back from holiday to a strange smell downstairs which I can smell all the time, dd intermittently and dh not at all! It's driving me to distraction It smells a bit like old fish fingers, sort of musty and yuck. I've hoovered and dusted through, washed the floors and everywhere else i can think of but it persists. Think it'll be floorboards up next but that's a huge job. Not happy
You have my sympathy but no advice I'm afraid

I had this exact same problem when I was pregnant with a heightened sense of smell too! It was a dead mouse under the floor boards, had to pull up all the stairs to find it! Drove me nuts!!!

@gleegeek A fishy smell could be due to a faulty electrical point. In our case it was a kitchen light that needed replacing.

Yes, definitely check the plug socket for the lamp.

My dog has the fishy blood smell sometimes usually about a week or so before season.
It smells disgusting.

@gleegeek have you checked the drip tray behind the fridge? Our kitchen smelt like that for weeks before I finally pulled the fridge out properly to look 🤢

Slugs?

I'm going with "dead thing somewhere" too.