How to "Smell proof" a room?

[CandlelightGlow]

We live in a maisonette that is the majority half of a large detached house. Underneath us is a small 1 bed flat and attached to the flat is our only downstairs room which is a garage conversion.

The flats are HA owned and there is a vulnerable person down there who isn't often at the house (so speaking to them or trying to knock will get us nowhere and I'm not sure how I'd feel about going to someone to tell them their home stinks either), but over the last few months there has been an issue of the bad smell from the downstairs flat being very smell-able in our downstairs room.

I tried googling his but the results that all come up for smell proofing your home for growing weed in 😳.

Does anyone have any ideas? Are there heavy duty odour neutralisers? Would an air purifier work? Is it a case of trying to make the room completely air tight on the 3 outer walls?

I tried googling his but the results that all come up for smell proofing your home for growing weed in 😳.

Sorry this should read - I tried googling this but the only results that come up are about masking weed smell in your own room or home. (And I don't know if these methods would be effective)

Would you consider reporting to your landlord, ask them to investigate, explain the occupier isn't often there for you to approach. Tell them your downstairs room is unusable because of the malodour from the adjacent flat.

In the meantime ventilate the room, window on trickle vent. Airwick type plug in?

Thanks @AmbleInAnnBoleyn 😊 Yes I've opened wide the windows at the front and am thinking of going around all the wall edgings under the carpet and seeing if there are any gaps to seal. The good news is the window wall is obviously furthest away from the flat so it's nice fresh air.

Unfortunately the smell is the tip of the iceberg and there is a huge backstory with over a year of HA, police, council and neighbourhood involvement so help with resolution now the "only" issue is a repulsive smell seems very unlikely. I did mention it weeks ago and it did get better, I think they must have contacted the neighbour, but while nowhere near as bad (it was like a wall hitting you when you opened the door, literally thought someone had died) is creeping up again so I have to make peace with the idea it might be an ongoing issue.

Environmental health?

Airwick plug in Clean Laundry is amazing and I don't really like plug ins as a rule.

Keep reporting,it's the only way it'll get dealt with.

Get a few dead bodies in kills the smell

Was going to square you sure they are not there and the police or landlord don’t need to do a welfare check for bodies for the smell???

Air purifiers do work. I have 4 of them! I live in a flat surrounded by neighbours who emit all kinds of unpleasant smells. I have an air purifier by each window and one by the front door. It's not a perfect solution, but it definitely helps.

Do you know if they have animals?
If they're going off for days and leaving an animal indoors with food going stale that would stink .
The animal could be dead ?

We have air purifiers in each room as we have an indoor cat, they definitely help control odors.

When was the last time you saw your neighbour? Dead bodies smell putrid.

Hey, thanks for the recent posts. I'm shaken too and I think about it often as I can't imagine what would smell so god awful. Luckily there were more police raids and searches on the property so I do think they would have spotted anything, hopefully. But yes given the kind of activity that went on there it did cross my mind. I reported the smell and made LL aware that is was from next door but for self preservation didn't want to get involved further. I did see the neighbour so I know they themselves are alive and well but there were many people in and out of the property so who knows.

Just to update, we have moved now. It just wasn't tenable living in such a situation. We didn't move far and I walked past the house recently, neighbour is in exactly the same state and our old place remains empty, unsurprisingly. It's so lovely having a clean fresh place!