Help! House STINKS after leak

[Dueindecemberr]

Our loft toilet has seemingly been leaking for a long time. Recently leaked through a bedroom below to the kitchen whilst we were away and the bedroom STINKS.

It was the clean cold water feed leaking but the room smells so strongly of wee I wondered if next door’s cat had been in (this has happened before).

We have sucked the water from the drenched carpet and washed the carpet with a supposedly nice smelling thing. Windows have been open since last weekend and heating on to dry it out but the stench remains.

Before I rip up the carpet, is there anything else to try? Or a chance it could be something else in there (DH is saying maybe it’s the damp in the ceiling/ wood above…).

thank you!

Have you had a dehumidifier running? We had a leak recently and ran a hired industrial dehumidifier for a solid 5 days (and ours was a small leak compared to yours).

You'll have so much damp you can't see as water is really destructive to houses.

Hire a dehumidifier and run it upstairs and downstairs until you stop getting water in it. I reckon you have a good 7-10 days of dehumidifier use ahead of you.

Have you got wooden or concrete floors, wet floorboards will need drying completely so the carpet has to come up. Wool carpets smell awful when they're wet. Has the leak been fixed, your insurance should cover the damage caused by the leak, are the bedroom and kitchen ceiling affected.

I would take up the carpet, it will be stopping the underfloor (wood?) from drying out.

I would also throw the carpet away.

Will try an industrial dehumidifier, thank you.

The bedroom has carpet, no idea if it’s wool. It’s one of those woven type carpets…

The bathroom that leaked in the loft has ruined floor tiles. The kitchen below is in the process of being ripped out/ extended so no need to fix (the ceiling and light fitting that were damaged have gone).

Current builders fixed the leak.

I am happy to rip out and chuck the carpet (well, sort of! It’s only 3 years old). I’m more worried about that not fixing the problem and the smell remaining.

Is it worth going through insurance? I had assumed after paying an excess, and premiums going up, we should just cover the costs.