Smelly House!

[Piggel]

DH and I have moved from a shiny new build house to a house built in the 60s. The previous occupant had a dog and didn’t take care of the house and now the house smells musty and stinks of wee! We had a professional carpet cleaner come in and it feels like the smell has got worse. We’re going to get rid of all the curtains and blinds and maybe look at getting another carpet cleaner in to try a different method of cleaning. But is this worth doing or should we just rip up the carpet and see what’s lying underneath? Also any advice on how to get rid of a musty smell?

We have a 15 month old and I’m 15 weeks pregnant so desperately wanting to get the house in a livable state asap!

Rip up the carpet now!

Get rid of the carpets.

Carpet cleaners only clean the carpet. The wee is in the underlay or even floorboards.

Yeah the wee will have soaked in floorboards, I had this when my old cat was in her final months. Carpets ripped up and floorboards scrubbed. My daughter is in the same situation just now only it's a house reeking of curry cooking smells.

Nice if you like the smell of curry 👃🏼

There's only one way to get rid of festering smells in old neglected houses. Carpets out, floors sanded and new flooring laid, walls and ceilings scrubbed and repainted, curtains, blinds etc binned, windows open constantly, dehumidifiers going and radiators flushed.

I had exactly this when moved in a year ago. Smell was awful. Had to chuck out carpet and underlay and relaid new (got a room sized remnant). Worked a treat.

I agree - the carpet has to go. We had similar when we moved with an 18 mo old and pregnant with #2

Get rid of the carpet. I also found it a nightmare having carpet with kids. Babies/toddlers/kids have so many messes/accidents/spills.

Carpets have to go - buy litres of dog pee enzyme cleaner for the floor boards underneath.

try and work out if it’s worse somewhere, the dog may have had a favourite spot.

It sounds like dog wee on the carpet is thr main culprit. However neglect and lack of airing could be contributing to the musty smell, so as well as dealing with all the soft furnishings:

Keep all the windows open as much as possible.

Wash all the walls and woodwork down properly using sugar soap - this will get rid of any grease and dirt.

Flush the drains through with hot water and soda crystals.

Thanks everyone. We’ve got new carpet on order and will be replacing the carpet throughout the whole house. Also have a pet enzyme cleaner to use on whatever is underneath the carpet & underlay once it’s ripped up. We’ve also removed all the previous soft furnishings and are working through the cleaning the house top to bottom, walls, skirtings etc. Frustrating but I can’t bear to live in a smelly house!

Cleaning Products Limited | Craftex Urine Neutraliser 5L (cleaningproductstore.com)
this stuff got rid of vomit and wee out of concrete, its really good stuff
i used it to scrub my subfloor before laying the carpet

Hey OP. Since lifting the carpets has the smell gone/reduced? I viewed a house I quite like but there is a really strong smell of cats. I’m thinking the carpets would need replaced immediately but I’m worried that even replacing them the smell would still linger 🫤

You have to rip up the carpets!

We had to do it when we moved, it stank and there was fresh wee by the front door (inside).

Once I found the wet patch I went a bit mad and started pulling up all the carpet downstairs. We had a week or do with fetching concrete floors but it smelt much better!

My home wasn't particularly smelly but had been closed up and was musty.

The smell improved remarkable once I'd ripped up all the old carpets, binned the curtains and scrubbed it.

I don't know if this works with dog wee but cat spray can be removed with sprinkling biological powder everywhere and leaving it for a few hours. The brush it up and scrub the floor.

@Scotsgirl001 the carpet is getting ripped up on Monday so will be able to update then what the smell is like, where it seems to be coming from etc. our carpet supplier seems to think the sub flooring is concrete so should be easy enough to clean (fingers crossed!) otherwise we’re just airing the house as much as we can, washing down the walls as others have suggested. Not much we can do until Monday! Would you have somewhere else to stay in the mean time if you went for that house if the smell is unbearable?

When I moved into this house it really stank of BO every time the house was hot. It went completely when I got rid of the blinds. I think the sun was heating them up and releasing the smell

Basically get rid of everything soft!

I also had a problem with the downstairs toilet (the guy who owned the house before had Parkinson's). It had to be completely gutted and refloored, new skirting boards, painted etc before the smell completely went.

@Piggel good luck, hopefully once the carpets are up you will notice the difference. I decided to discount the house I viewed as I cant afford the immediatly outlay of expense replaing all the carpets and redecorating etc, along with other things that would need doing, so my search continues...

Had pretty much the same experience except the previous owner had 3 cats. We used bleach on the concrete sub floor to clean it. Leave for a couple of days to dry out fully before laying new flooring. Also you nay not have this issue but we had to remove the skirting boards as the csts sprayed some of them. And also give the walls in the corners near the floor a good scrub as well in case of spray.

I absolutely feel your pain. Dc was 11ms when we moved from a flat to the house and I didn't want to put them down on the carpet until it was sorted. I was probably over reacting but it was just gross.

In the mean time, what I found helped a lot was spreading baking soda o er the carpets leaving it over night and then hovering it up. Use a shop vac not a normal hover because it will clog the filter otherwise.