Help me unravel this mystery before I burn the contents of this room down

[NotAgainWilson]

As the title says, I am feeling like purifying this room through fire after a week of cleaning. washing and replacing stuff has proved unsuccessful to remove the stench a short term lodger left behind.

The room was spring cleaned before his arrival. He was around for 3 weeks. He had massively smelly feet (I said that as the mother of a sporty smelly child that I could barely stand at times, but this is in a different league, more than ten times worse and resistant), after a week around I asked him if he could do something about the smell stench, he apologised (he was lovely and polite otherwise) and said he would get odour eaters to sort it.

It didn’t make a difference so, as I had told him when I rent the room that I would be going in to open the window to ventilate the room every morning, I got the super strength version of Odor Eaters and sprayed all his shoes every morning and left the window open the whole day. This helped the smell not to extend to other rooms as before.

The last of his 3 weeks, he had a cold so stayed at home, therefore I was unable to spray shoes if open the window. He left the room tidy but the stench is still there. It smells as if you have crossed bad smelly feet with buttery toffee and is of such strength you feel like vomiting.

The room was also left covered in some white fluff, very similar to the fluff you may find under the bed if you don’t clean for years, but it was EVERYWHERE, all around the floor, walls, furniture, picture frame and a lot of it has gone into the radiator. I cannot imagine such amount of fluff being produced in three weeks, much less so by a single person no matter how dirty they could be.

I have removed more than bucket load of fluff, vacuum cleaned and washed the walls, floors, furniture and the inside out of the radiator, used a whole can of Odor Eaters, Oust and a full bottle of Ecover as well as leaving the window open every day, one week later the stench is now a smell but is still unbearable.

I have bought a new duvet and pillows. But I am convinced that this situation can be due to either an endocrinology related issue or bacteria, and therefore not safe. Shall I burn all the bed linen? the whole room? I am at the end of my tether, have spent a week cleaning and again every day over the last week and the smell is still there.🤮🤮🤮🤮

Was there a mattress protector on? Is the smell just absorbed into the mattress from his feet as he lay in bed?

Is the smell stronger anywhere in particular OP? Is it coming from the mattress for example? I would have thought the measures you've already taken should sort any general room smell so would be looking for a specific source. If it is the mattress the bicarb trick may well work, or the same process with biological washing powder (sprinkle liberally, leave overnight then vacuum) because it contains enzymes that will 'eat' any bacteria which may be causing the smell. Let us know if any of the suggestions work, it would be driving me mad so really hope you manage to sort it.

I think I would get a carpet cleaner and use it to clean the mattress and then leave it propped up with the windows open for a week. You’ve eliminated everything else I can think of.
If you have a friend with cats, you could try a clean tray of cat litter, or fill some old tights or socks with clean cat litter and leave in the room. It’s a good odour absorber, even better if you can get cat litter which contains carbon. It works well on getting smells out of cars. (I say that as a cat owner).

All I can suggest is zoflora everywhere and use a carpet shampoo machine filled with yet more zoflora on the mattress. then fling window open and air it for a week.

These are good: https://onaonline.com/product/ona-block/

Usually used to get rid of the smell of a grow house/weed smoke, and so are very effective.

Also, dry coffee grounds - leave some in dishes around the room. Can be used grounds. Works well.

Sounds like some good ideas, but what about so much fluff? The description doesn’t sound like tissue left in with laundry. It’s even more mystifying than the smell.

If it were me, I'd be repainting the room, throwing all the bed linen, duvet, mattress, and armchair, and starting again. gross

Is there anyone else in the house? Can they smell it too? Or are you on your own?

I'm asking because such a persistence of the smell would make me wonder if it's actually detectable by others. We can suffer from odour hallucinations, often (not always) due to mouth or sinus problems, so I'd want to check that it's detectable by other people too.

(I've had a cold and I keep smelling cigarette smoke in my house, though no-one has ever smoked here! So the smell is just something that my body is wrongly detecting - it's not really here!)

How mysterious. No advice, OP (though when we moved into this house, which had been a student house, we employed a cleaning company that usually does industrial cleaning and crime scenes 😀) — but when he actually lived there, was it definitely his feet? When you asked him about it, did it seem like news to him? I mean, I’m struggling to imagine how an ordinary person who went out into the world, worked, had friends etc could function if he was that strongly smelly. Did he appear to shower/bathe/wash his clothes regularly? Is the fluff he left behind smelly? Did that only appear during the week he spent ill in bed?

Agree with @mauvish - it’s unlikely to be anything except in your own mind at this level of cleaning. Leave the window open for a month. Only other thing left to do is mop the walls and ceiling with sugar soap.

It’s the mattress. Could you have it professionally cleaned? Obviously his sweat from his body and feet would have soaked into the mattress while he was sleeping. You might have to get a new bed if you can’t get the mattress clean or change it. My first husband had incredibly smelly feet and it permeated everything in the room.

I get phantom smells (usually cigarette smoke so sharp it stings the inside of my nose) as part of my migraine with aura symptoms. Have you ever suffered?

He said he’d get some Odor Eaters? 😂

Sounds like he needed to see a doctor. It is NOT normal to stink that much.

Coffee grounds are a very good idea. DD once bought a car which reeked of dogs and a few weeks of leaving coffee grounds in it removed the smell.

Plug in air freshener.. For pets. Actually works on doggy smells!

Is there any way he could have put something under the floorboards? I'm imagining a huge mass of the white fluff down there with something living in it.

The smell is stronger where he kept the shoes/feet. By the radiator, under the desk and by the bed.

i tried the enzyme based odour eater, didn’t make a difference.

The fluff is so strange…

My uncle had those feet. The whole upstairs of his house smelled of them. It was part of the overall atmosphere.

I have a steam cleaning hoover (a cheap JML type of thing) that I use on the mattress / carpet when my child vomits / bed wets.

That's what I was thinking.

He's got some sort of skin infection going on. Nobody's feet should stink that much. I assume he does wash them with soap / shower gel in the shower.

No need to blame me, we all can smell it.

I have vacuumed and washed the walls with diluted vinegar already… twice.

I did a quick search that brought a Maple Syrup Urine Syndrome up.
Wonder if that could be, it smells like toffee flavoured feet smell.

Could you get in touch with the local uni chemistry department and ask if there are any masters students in need of a project? 😁

Yes, he washed and bathed all time. In his last week when he had a cold he was having 2 baths and two showers a day. I cannot believe how quickly mould could grow under the right conditions (internal bathroom, with bog standard fan)

I stayed somewhere where they had just repainted the whole house so they had put cut in half onions everywhere to absorb the smell. Worth a try, you throw the onions out afterwards by the way…..

The fluff is a mystery… I can see he used at least 6 rolls of toilet paper when he had the cold, but how could he produce all that fluff??? I cannot imagine him spending all day rubbing toilet sheet against each other.

This is outing, my lodgers are science professionals in short term projects… I have been wondering if it could be something brought back from the lab.

My bet is a skin bacteria, we all have them and in the wrong conditions they get wild…