Nasty smell

[spidermum]

We moved into our new home about a month ago. We have two cats and on the second day we came down to breakfast to find a dead mouse under the kitchen table. My mum has also seen a mouse outside. There were some quite big gaps in the floorboards which I filled with newspaper but now we have an unpleasant smell in our kitchen and it's really getting me down. It seems sort of rubbishy smell. Could it be a dead mouse? did I block its escape route? The people who lived here before had dogs who obviously peeed on the floor occasionally and I can't completely get rid of that smell either. they also left quite alot of stuff here in loft and garden and in kitchen cupboards and until I can get it smelling of home and getting their stuff out of here it doesn't feel properly like home. How am I going to get rid of all these nasty smells. As I type I have a scented candle by my side! Any advice gratefully accepted.

Just wanted to write - I was staying at my MIL's last year and there was a really rotten smell in the front porch, it got worse and worse until it was rank! It turned out that there was a dead and rotting mouse buried under a pile of stuff in there - yuck! It was revolting - like that rubbishy smell you describe but then it became clear that it was rotting flesh,.....bleurgh!

anyway, as soon as it was cleaned away and she scrubbed the floor the smell vanished. You have to locate the smell, sounds like dead animal to me.. Pull up the newspaper and have a good look. As for your floors - could you maybe get them sanded (if they're wood) or get the carpets professionally cleaned?

you should have a big clear out and get rid of all the left behind stuff, it'll be all musty.

Sorry, don't have anything else....maybe post this on the new Good Housekeeping board?

my mum had a smell in her shop and that turned out to be a dead mouse under the floor.
cant you ring environmetal health and ask them to come and have a sniff?they'll get a man with stuff to come and clean to get rid of the smell (well,they did with my mum)

I had a nasty smell like rubbish in my kitchen too. Turns out it was the washing machine. Behind the soap dispenser it was yucky mouldy sludge and the hole that the water goes down was full of this stuff too. Cleaned it and seems ok now. Also the rubber rim of the drum had mould in it. Don't know how or why but maybe if you inherited the w/m this could be the problem. Tbh I doubt you could block a mouse in as I hear they can get through an opening the size of a pencil width. Though it's possible one may have died anyway. Try checking behind the plinth of your kitchen cabinets (you could lay some traps there too)we caught a couple last year and we live on the first floor!!

newspaper is used to make nests

you need to put steel wire in the gaps

don't know about the smell though

Thanks for your messages. It makes my legs go to jelly just thinking about them. Unfortunately it can't be the washing machine as just had to buy a new one. I think we are going to have to get the boards up. Don't know how to go about that though. Would environmental health come to a private house do you think, Buffy?

I know, they're disgusting things aren't they. I jumped a few feet in the air when I saw one in the kitchen last summer. I was making a salad and some lettuce dropped on the floor. Next thing, out of the corner of my eye I saw something scuttle across the floor. Bold as you like the little critter was eating little gem lettuce whilst looking at me (well the last bit is artistic license as I couldn't see his/her eyes) but suffice it to say it was GROSS!