Help me find out the damp smell in my bedroom

[elm26]

Every day I get home from work and my bedroom smells damp, it's driving me mad as I can't find where it is.

Double room, 2 chest of drawers and built in wardrobe, fabric headboard bed and curtains, no blinds.

I always leave the top window open on the latch so it's constantly airing and when I'm drying laundry, I open a window fully although don't dry clothes in bedroom.

I've looked behind the bed, the chest of drawers, no damp, no wet patches.

Curtains are fine, windowsills dry and clean.

Change bedsheets once a week, no clutter or clothes on floor, washing hamper is near enough empty apart from a few white socks and I've stuck my nose in there and nothing.

It's driving me insane and I don't know how to get rid of it. Help!

Can everyone else smell the smell?

Only ask as i see you are pregnant...I was convinced my dogs bed smelt like beef when I was pregnant. No one else could smell it.

As PP says, it will likely be something you have put away a bit damp like shoes or coat or something not dried properly when you put your washing away. Or has anything spilt on the carpet or something like that

I had this same problem in a spare bedroom, made even more mysterious by the fact that the musty smell which met me when I opened the door disappeared after a while once I opened the windows or left the door open. It seemed worse in the winter so I blamed it on damp although I could find no evidence.

Eventually, after three years of this, I noticed that my gas meter in the garage was going round slightly even when there was no gas being used ie no heating or cooking, so I got the gas engineer to check for a leak. It turned out that there was a leak and after he hunted around in the void under the floor where the gas pipes are, he found it - right under the room with the musty smell.

He was appalled that I had mistaken the smell of gas for a damp problem as it could have been very dangerous and caused an explosion if I had lit the hob before opening windows! Luckily it was a very small leak so not a lot of gas built up in the actual house but I felt really stupid for not checking sooner.

I’m not suggesting that you have a gas leak, indeed your flat might be all electric, but you might just consider other causes for the smell rather than just damp. I think dodgy electrics have a distinctive smell or a dead rodent?

Gosh, I think I sound mad!

I had this behind a built in wardrobe. When it was pulled out it was covered in thick black mould..horrrifc!!
Look behind it, could be the chipboard on the back or the wall. Is any other furniture tight to the wall? If it is pull that out too. Could also be a leak under the floor, this happened in my sons room...complete pain in the arse

My house gets very damp like this. In my case it's because the windows aren't very good and it doesn't ventilate very well. Trickle vents on the windows are meant to help . Furthermore the insulation is very poor. The house is detached but very small so there are a lot of external walls and furniture has to be against external walls, including fitted wardrobes which do get really damp. I run a dehumidifier all the time.

Check for mould behind wardrobe, check any pipe work nearby for problems, if you have a loft above, check that the insulation is not blocking air flow in the walls. I've had all of those things cause damp smell problems in houses I've lived in.

When I was pregnant there was a set of bedding I couldn't go near as it is such a weird smell. Can other people smell it? Might just be your pregnancy superpowers 🦸‍♀️

Also wrap some blue roll around your radiator pipes to check for any minor leaks at the valve junctions (shows up obviously on blue). I notice you are pregnant, can your dp smell it too? Pregnancy can do funny things to your sense of smell.

We had large wardrobes pushed up against the wall and the chipboard back had gone mouldy but they were on an external wall.

What about condensation dripping down from your windows onto the carpet?

Or do you hand towels in their. I can smell a damp towel a mile off.

Just another thought check all the stuff in the wardrobes, I had some handbags stored in the top of mine that went mouldy.

I would agree the fitted wardrobes are the most likely culprit to be hiding damp, although a bit less likely on an internal wall. We moved into our house last year and once it started getting colder my fitted wardrobe on an external wall started to show signs of damp quite quickly. Not helped by us putting off using the heating for longer than usual.

To combat this I emptied the wardrobe, blitzed it with mould remover spray, ran a dehumidifier in it for a couple of days, then reduced the amount of stuff in the wardrobe, ordered those hanger things that catch water, and propped the door open so that the air could flow (door sits against a wall so not in the way although does irritate me a bit to look at) Damp's not returned but we get a lot of water in the hanging bags.

We had this and it was the chest of drawers. I had looked behind it at the wall and seen nothing, but the mould wasn't on the wall, it was on/in the drawers.

Check inside all your cupboards, especially any next to outside walls.