What is this smell?!

[Shedcity]

Help me! I’m desperate!

At the moment we have no dishwasher and I’m washing all dishes by hand. I’ve previously washed some dishes by hand and had no issue. Now though quite often the dishes stink once they dry. Today I could smell the smell whilst I was still washing the dishes and I knew it would be bad. I then had to re wash them 3 times to then get the smell out.
i do have a strong sense of smell but I can smell it as soon as I walk in the kitchen and dishes are drying, it’s that strong.

interestingly it’s not an ‘even’ smell. A fork had to be washed 3 times to get the smell out, but a knife from the same batch didn’t smell as strongly and was fine after a quick rinse.

the sink is clean, I’ve changed dish soap, I’ve changed the sponge I’m using.
what is happening?! It’s driving me mad to wash things over and over again, or to smell this stink whilst I’m trying to eat from the dishes

Tea towel or Draining rack need washing?

is it and age thing? I drive DH nuts saying there’s a smell on the crockery from the dishwasher unless the filter is scrubbed after each use. Apparently you get super sensitive to smells during menopause. DH can’t smell our dishes like I can, and they don’t all smell an equal amount either.

can anyone else smell it on your dishes?

What does it smell like?

So you can eventually wash the smell out which means it isn’t the water, soap, or sink so it must be something getting on the dishes?

Are you drying them or leaving them to air dry?

Have you used zoflora at all? Because if that dries on a dishcloth it smells of musty wet dog. Are you pregnant ?

@AccommodatingAlice oh I’m 30 and not menopausal to my knowledge, I’ve always had quite a strong sense of smell so I’ll ok forward to that getting worse with time! I can (could) often smell the dishwasher too but always found a quick rinse did the job on most things if that was an issue. This seems to take a proper wash or two to get out. I cleaned the drainer and rack yesterday, I’m not sure how often other people clean theirs but surely it wouldn’t smell badly already

@statetrooperstacey Now you mention it it does have a certain wet dog quality about it. I haven’t used it on the sponge but we do have some so it’s totally possible that DH has. The thing is, when I smell the sponge, it’s not particularly smelly, given how stinky the plates seem to be - maybe because it’s all wet at that point. The plates are definitely worse after they dry.

not pregnant to my knowledge

maybe that’s it though I am relieved to have another lead

I always smell a whiff of eggs on all the dishes when having washed something that had eggs on. So frustrating as I seem to be the only one who smells it.

We did have eggs yesterday, but I’m not sure it smelt like eggs. I’ll try to see if thats a pattern though, next time we have them

We find eggs always leave a wet dog smell on plates /sink etc. So now we rarely eat them at home

Yes! Wet dog/eggy smell for sure!

@Shedcity, make sure to come back if/when you find out. Be good to see if there's three of us on the thread :D

@Shedcity
Guarantee it's egg.

Doesn't smell like egg but my god it's rancid.

I have a dishwasher and it still comes out with that smell on it if it's not been put on straigh away.

I now wash any pans utensils and plates used for egg straight away and by hand in the sink with fairy and boiling water.

Sat to eat my tea the other night and the plate stank even though it had been through dishwasher. Turns out dh had made eggs and not washed or rinsed it before going in the dishwasher

It is definitely eggs. If you spray Zoflora on the dishes you have had eggs on, the smell goes away after washing them.

I think you may all be right! I thought I’d gotten on top of it, but now I think of it we were having eggs a lot and now we just hadn’t had eggs for a fortnight, until the other day when the smell appeared again. It doesn’t smell like eggs, I’d have never ever worked that out.

it also makes sense for why I could smell it when washing the dishes and why it’s stronger on some things, maybe the things that have had egg on, or been washed with the sponge after it’s just washed the eggs.

Thank you for the tips on how to stop it, it’s so foul, I can’t even eat when I can smell it. But maybe now I know what it is it’ll bother me less.

Glad you've got to the bottom of it.