My new house smells

[Summerhillsquare]

It just honks. Sort of musty, unwashed body smell. What can I do? So far I have had the carpets cleaned, taken down the curtains to wash/dispose and dusted and sprayed all hard surfaces. This has improved things a fair bit but I can still smell it. The weird thing is the bathroom smells worst of all!

will it just go away with time? Will I get used to it? All tips appreciated.

What is the flooring in the bathroom?

Did you notice the smell when you went to view?

Otherwise, I'd say bleach the living daylights out of everything and air completely for 2 days.

could it be a leak under the bath or somewhere equally hidden and you're smelling the damp/rotting wood?

We had this in our en suite. Turns out the shower hadn't been ranked properly and the floorboards were slowly rotting.

^^ tanked! Although it was rank

Is it a new build?

Have you washed the walls and ceilings? (Obviously this sounds insane)

We bought a house from a heavy smoker and the biggest thing we did to make a difference to the smell was to sugar soap all the walls and ceilings. The waster coming off was dark brown 🤢

Get the drains checked.

Tiles, tiles on the wall, no fabric blinds

Not a new build. Comprehensively refurbished about 5 years ago. Previous owner didn't smoke, it's definitely not a tobacco or rotting wood smell.

No. I did find lots of plug in air fresheners when I got in, though, so I guess it was masked.

Clean the drains.

Light loads of matches? They're supposed to get rid of smells.

Bake a loaf of bread, burn incense, wash doors and frames etc.

I'd also be looking for a leak, just in case.

Clean everything to within an inch of its life. Every square inch. Walls, doors, skirting boards, everything. Remove the carpets. It's not enough to just have them cleaned. They could have had pets that peed in the carpets and the cleaning has brought the smell up 😷Paint. Every window open all day. Candles and wax burners everywhere for a while.

Is there limescale in the loo? This holds onto smells and can be absolutely rank.

Also hair festering in the plugholes 🤢

Get a bottle of odour foaming drain cleaner, it did the trick for us when our new house smelled nasty 😀

Ooh good shout. Off to buy drain cleaner and check the plugholes.

@OkayKinkade I wish I could replace the carpets, they are only a few years old though. I've painted the worst smelling room and that did help actually. Who knew paint and plaster holds on to smell?!

Does it smell like a charity shop? Our house had that and it was mould in the built-in wardrobes (on an external north-facing wall).

Drain and sink unblocker

Makes a HUGE difference

@Summerhillsquare also turn cold taps on in showers, sinks and baths. if they have not been used for a while smells build up there

Not quite, but there are a few built in cupboards I shall now bleach.

Drain unblocker

Apparently using coke helps with limescale in loos - don't just bleach them get something to deal with limescale as well.

Check under the bath etc if you can take panels out as maybe you have a leak.

Do you have a shower? If they haven't used the right sort of plasterboard water could be seeping through dodgy tiling and making the plasterboard beneath damp. Damp plasterboard has a really nasty musty/mouldy smell.

My life pro tip for hairy drains, if you can't stomach getting something hook shaped and pulling it all out, is to buy some cheap hair remover cream for legs and squirt that all in the offending drain, it dissolves the hair and then you can just rinse with water.

We had a terrible drains smell in our bathroom and it turned out it was the toilet not being properly sealed round the back. We got it resealed and the smell went away.