Disgusting smell plaguing my house

[Orangelover]

Pretty much as it says on the tin!

A couple of weeks ago me and OH noticed a disgusting smell in our kitchen that pretty much smelt like gone off, sour milk rotting somewhere

We assumed that it was either the fridge - which I cleaned out and disinfected and found no obvious source of odour, or the bin - emptied and zoflora'd the whole thing. Smell still there...

Cleaned the kitchen whole kitchen and downstairs to within an inch of its' life (Which has been done multiple times in the last few weeks anyway as we've just sold the house!), had everything out of all of my cupboards. The smell still lingered!

The kitchen is all integrated, so OH has took the bottom panel out and we've looked underneath all of the cupboards to no avail. The smell just continues to waft throughout the kitchen diner.

The downstairs is reasonably open plan so I then moved onto the living room - done a full clean of the carpets and sofa. Pulled sofa out - nothing underneath. Had doors and windows open throughout constantly to air anything out.

I feel like I've pretty much tried everything to locate the disgusting smell. It even seems to be evolving into a drainy smell! I've mr muscled all the sinks just incase but I'm really at a loss now with what else to try. I'm very conscious that we'll be moving house in a few weeks and I really don't want the nice lady who's buying it to be stuck with this revolting stench that I can not source! I'm pretty good at maintaining my cleaning standards so this is greatly upsetting me without trying to be too dramatic!

Anyone had similar? Is there anything glaringly obvious that I have overlooked in my quest to rid myself of this pungent pergatory

Fridge tray or dead mouse under oven would be my guesses.

@draughtycatflap - I was thinking the same. I found a potato sack (one of those that preserve for longer) that had been hidden under another bag. Opened it up and the smell hit me. The smell was unbelievable and despite not actually touching anything in the kitchen, the stench lingered for days . Honestly smelled like a rotting corpse.

Is the smell always in the same place? Is it moves or gets stronger at times it might be a poltergeist. Do you have children or teenagers at home? Is so, do they notice the smell, or not?

Check your electrical sockets

Many years ago when DD was small we had the most disgusting, gut wrenching smell in the kitchen. After several weeks🤮🤮 we discovered (having checked all usual places as suggested in this thread) that she had stuffed a prawn that DM had given her whilst out for lunch underneath the arm of her high chair into the mechanism where it had rotted 🤢🤢🤢

Agree I would check electrical sockets too as when they don’t connect properly and start to heat up dangerously they can make a terrible smell.
Also could your drains be blocked and the smell coming up through the sink?

Good luck

A Poltergeist 🤣 sorry but that really tickled me!!

To echo PP; there is nothing quite like the smell of a rotten potato 🤢

We had a problem like that and it eventually turned out to be the overflow vent of the sink. Apparently, our sink has a design flaw where the pea trap is too high and so the overflow pipe can't empty properly and gets mould in it occasionally and stinks the whole place out I seem to spend my life spraying bleach down it to keep the smell at bay

I was really hoping for an update from OP to see if she'd found the source!

We recently had a rancid smell we traced it to a cracked egg in a box of eggs.

Any update OP? We need to know!

Well guys sorry to keep you waiting!

We went under the oven and at the back of it - no smell to be found.

Also had the fridge out (which was a nightmare to move), found the fridge tray which was a bit gross but still not that smelly!

However... the smell seems to have dissappeared

I feel so dissatisfied! So I've deep cleaned the washer and the dishwasher to take out my frustration at never finding the smell but it's gone for now anyway..

orange your mysterious smell seems to have manifested its self exactly the same as mine did. It came, went and despite pulling out everything moveable I never found out what it was. Even the smell was the same. Like spilled milk.

Perhaps whatever it was is now very very dead and has finished rotting.

Or perhaps it was actually your oven mitts.

We have had a problem with the compressor in our fridge and again same problem in my dads freezer leading to a rotten smell - massive electricity bill too
so the compressor is overheating which warms up the fridge or freezer which then calls for more cooling which in turn overloads the compressor and it becomes red hot. - the fridge or freezer will have hot spots and this creates burning plastic -

If it happens again check your sink trap , sometimes a vacuum can occur which pulls the water out of your trap under the sink and that leads to sewer smell being allowed into the room , it can also leat to bad smells in the bathroom and anywhere else you have a trap

Where is your bathroom with respect to your kitchen? We had a rank smell on and off in the kitchen during the summer. After a while we realised it was from the drain of the shower and got really bad when anyone was is the shower. But for some weird reason it was way worse in the kitchen than in the main bathroom.

I had this & it was where the washing machine drain pipe outlet fitted into. Even though I cleaned the washing machine on 90% & did bleach service washes etc I never thought about that outlet pipe in the cupboard. I shoved two lots of one shot down it & the hosepipe & it flushed out.

We had a dead rat under the floorboards years and years ago. The passage of time hasn’t erased the memory of the awful smell. Once we located the source and got rid of it, the foul, rancid odour went away pretty quickly.

Sometimes it's a very slow leak. We had a smell we couldn't identify until our laminate flooring in our kitchen started to go "spongy". Turned out to be happening everytime the dishwasher emptied. Only realised it was that when I started finding bits of rice on the floor nearby and couldn't figure out where they were coming from.

I'd ditto the dead mouse - - - - but the smell usually only lasts a week or so. (Yes I've had a dead mouse, but we only found its little mummified corpse months later and linked it with the smell we'd had). Poor mouse.

If it’s a fishy smell then check your ceiling and wall light sockets (where you screw the bulb in)...

I second the pp about coffee machine cartridges. We had this problem and that was the cause. Unbelievably bad for the size.

It sounds like your sink trap was empty of water and the smell was coming from the drains (cabbage foul smell) ,. Sometimes a vacuum can be created that pulls the water out of the trap allowing air to circulate causing the smell

We had a foul smell coming from the utility room. Turned out we had a gas leak from our old boiler.Because the door kept being opened to let dog out back , it took a while to realise. Had it checked and got gas cut off. Replaced boiler - only happened to be the coldest week of the year with no heating for a week till replaced. Brrr!