AIBU to think I’ve checked everywhere?!

[Ctu24agent]

So we returned from holiday on Saturday and I thought I smelt an offish smell in the kitchen, but put it down to no windows open for ten days. Fast forward to today where the smell has gotten uncontrollable.

Before I left I cleaned out the fridge and bread bin. Did a good clean of the whole house, kitchen especially. I’ve cleaned out cupboards since my return, the oven, scrubbed the floors and under the sink…even the washing machine had a deep clean cycle. I’m at an utter loss to know where it’s coming from. My kitchen isn’t huge, so I can’t think of anywhere I’ve missed!
help a girl out before she goes mad… AIBU to think Im going nuts? There is nowhere else to clean! So where is this god awful smell coming from?!

Dead mouse in the walls / under floorboard.

Where do you keep your potatoes?

I'll bet you've got a dead mouse - I once found one behind my oven! Also look behind the fridge, anywhere with a gap such as down the side of the washing machine and under the baseboards. Good luck!

Sink plug......

The sink/shower drains? You could pour dilute vinegar down each drain pipe and see if that helps. Or if not vinegar, loo cleaner

Dead mouse or potato were my first thoughts. It's absolutely incredible how badly a rotten potato smells.

Have you got kickboard under kitchen cupboards, I'm thinking dead mouse, assume you cant work out an area it's stronger in, and have ruled out the drains in the hot weather.

Have you taken the kick boards off the bottom of the kitchen units to see if something is dead under there?

Have you cleaned the drain hole inside the fridge and also pulled the fridge out and cleaned the tray under the back of the fridge that catches the stuff from the drain hole?

Dead rat/mouse or something behind skirting/fridge/cooker/in loft.

Drains?

Fish smell is often a burning cable, check appliances/behind fridge etc

Dead mouse. I found one wedged between two floorboards in our cupboard under the stairs. I had gone mad, bleaching the entire house. The smell of one tiny animal was unbelievable.

Potato

Do you have a coffee machine? My smell turned out to be the dregs in the drip tray that hadn't been cleaned out in a while.

If it is a mouse it could also be under the dishwasher. They get attracted to the food smells

I’m team Dead Mouse. I found one in a storage box in my study - as PP have said, the smell from one tiny mouse is incredible!

I thought potato too. You could try leaving an open tupperware box with a load of bicarb out on your worktop - it's great for absorbing smells

Seconding checking the drip tray behind the fridge - ours smelt like something had died in there a few years back. Ended up having to pull the fridge out, scrub it all thoroughly and pour vinegar through it! Infinitely better than a dead mouse though.

I was going to say fridge drip tray too

I'm also thinking a mouse has died somewhere. the smell gets horrendous after a couple of days, gradually getting worse and in my experience starts to disappear around about 5 days after its noticed. if you don't find it, the smell will go soon, but agree it absolutely stinks for a few days.

Mine was potato juice in the fridge drip tray.

The drain? If we go away for more than a few days our kitchen drain absolutely stinks, to the point I take the whole drain off the sink and have to wash everything through, and flush the washing machine through.

A fish smell can be electrical. Check all your plug points and switches etc. we had a fishy smell in our upstairs hall and it was coming from our shower switch outside the bathroom door.
When we took the unscrewed the switch the cabling was melted and blackened.

It's worth checking just in case.

Have you checked that you haven't left anything in the oven by mistake? We did that once.

My experience of this was a beaker of milk hidden at the bottom of one of the toy boxes. Joyous.