Funny smell on landing

[dangalf]

We have a funny smell that keeps emanating on our upstairs landing, it has been coming and going for a few months. It is an ammonia type smell so we thought maybe a cat had got in and sprayed on the carpet. However, we have cleaned the carpet several times, including getting in a professional company to shampoo it and the smell is still there. It comes and goes, seems to be worse on warmer days. We cannot figure out where it is coming from or why? Does anyone have any advice for locating the smell, or what sort of person we could hire to find out what it is?

I wonder if the smell is from something in the floorboards? We have a very old timber house with a big fireplace. On warm days, there is a distinct (but not unpleasant) woodsmoky smell in our house. We reckon it comes from the chimney which, despite regular sweeps, will of course be coated in centuries of soot, and the heat brings the smell out.

We had the same smell on our down stairs hall way also have a cat so thought maybe she had done a wee in a cupboard but turned out it was damped/leak in a behind boxed pipe work. So maybe a plumber to check for leaks ?

dodgy electrics can smell fishy sometimes. We had this in our last house and it turned out to be some wiring to a light switch

We had a smell in our hall, I thought it smelt like tcp turned out it was the alarm box that was in the hall!

It's probably something electrical, most likely a light switch or a switch for electric shower or something, it gives off a very distinctive cat-pee smell.
Better call an electrician to check it

We had a fishy type smell from a light fitting. Got electrician in to sort it out and no problem since.

Dodgy electrics? Have a sniff about the nearest light fitting.

Have you decorated recently?

We have decorated recently but none of the other rooms smell so not sure it is that. The area of the smell is near some electrics so will look into that possibility. Thanks a lot for all your replies - it's been most helpful.

If it's wall odour phenomenon it wouldn't necessarily mean that all the rooms smell. It is caused by the paint reacting with something on the wall so it may just affect one wall and not others. If it's worse when it's warm and worse when the windows are open I'd bet money that it's that. Which paint did you use?

Could it be coming from the loft space? We have a shower on the loft which has previously leaked tiny amounts of water and always results in a dodgy smell oh the landing. Might be a dead thing in the loft?