Bad smell in 1 room

[Anxioustealady]

Hi,

Please help me get to the bottom of this.

I'm in a new build, and the back bedroom smells intermittently and has done since we moved in.

We put carpet down, but we haven't painted.

The back bedroom backs onto the garden and the cat does use the garden as a toilet, but the other room at the back doesn't smell, and if I open the window outside doesn't smell.

All I have in here is a wardrobe and chest of drawers. Inside the wardrobe doesn't smell.

I shampooed the carpet but it's not gone.

Tempted to pull everything out the wardrobe and chest of drawers, put it in another room, and wipe down the carcasses and see if it goes, if not pull the carpets up.

Could anyone please give me some ideas?

Is it worth tracking when it smells and when it's rained? Or anything else?

We had one room that smelled of cat pee on warm sunny days only, started a couple of years after we moved in. Eventually we narrowed it down to the type of paint we had used to redecorate it - we’d painted it in the winter so it wasn’t immediately obvious. Repainted the room and that seemed to sort it. Hopefully yours will be as simple a fix

Thanks for the info. I really hope I can get it sorted too, now I've got mice in my head I don't even want to go in there.

We haven't painted, it's the whitewash that the whole house is done in, but it could be something the builders have used on the walls there for some reason?

I've just gone in to see what I can smell and someone burnt something outside so I can't smell anything at all. Have to try tomorrow

Is it above your kitchen? Is it kitchen smells from your extractor?

It is above the kitchen! Maybe there's a problem with the hood, or the filter needs changing? I'll see if the smell coincides with cooking. Thank you

Did this happen to you? Would you know how to describe the smell?

I have exactly the same in my house! And my bathroom is above the kitchen. My bathroom smells of a sweet, very slightly urine smell, not too unpleasant but not nice either. I've sniffed everywhere in the room and can't work out where it is coming from, I've been in my house for a year now. And it is worse in the summer too. I've had rats, but I doubt it's rats or mice as then it surely would also smell bad in the winter? And I haven't heard any scuffling noises in the bathroom. It doesn't even go when I open the window.

Possibly a dead rodent under the floorboards or in a cupboard of the room below the smelly room. This happened to my partner. Partially decomposed rat in the airing cupboard below his room, the smell was coming through the vent.

As I’ve just said to OP, could be a dead body of a rat. Cloying sweetish smell is often a sign. Especially when it’s more potent in the warmer weather.

I really hope it's not this. I wouldn't say it was sweet but I can't describe it

Below is the kitchen, you'd think I'd smell it in the kitchen if it was in there? I'm worried it's the oven vent now.

Mystery smell detector should be a profession. I need one lol

But how long would the dead rat smell last for?

Yes, we have a bedroom above our kitchen and the extractor fan is on the wall below the bedroom. It’s a hard to describe smell, sort of musty and a bit off. Nowhere else smells. If we leave the window on the latch all the time it’s fine. Ours is an old kitchen and I wonder if there’s a whole in the flue for the extractor and the smell is going under the floorboards. Hopefully getting a new kitchen soon!

Yeah if I have the window open the smell goes. Which makes me think it's not something in the room, or maybe that's wishful thinking, I really hope it's not a rat or mouse!

I will pay attention to when it smells and if anyone's cooked.

Thank you! Hope it gets sorted for you soon

If i knew what it was in mine I wouldn't mind so much. It's that I'm worried it's something like an animal or pet urine that we shouldn't be breathing in.

the Smell is so hard to describe, but it’s cloying. My partners one was found in the utility room just beside the kitchen, below his bedroom. They couldn’t really smell it downstairs there but the smell wafted upstairs possibly due to the vent. Like you the smell seemed to dissipate a bit when the window is open but came back when shut. It took quite a bit of looking around before they found where the thing was and were shocked it was a partially skeletonised rat. Pest control may be able to source the smell if you hire them, but a decomposed rat or mouse in a vent is the first thing I thought of.

It can last for months.

We had a bedroom develop a really strong BO/urine type smell - teenager got blamed initially. But on investigation it was the Ikea wardrobe doors (probably about 5 years old). They had an opaque panel in them that really smelled strongly of BO when sniffed. Doors taken off, replaced with plain ones and the smell has completely gone.

Aw the poor teenager being blamed lol. I'm glad you got it sorted

Thought about this some more, and I remember when I moved in, the carpet had just been put down, and I hadn't got my cat yet.

My clothes had been in bags for a month or 2. I put all of them in the room, and I thought it smelt bad in there.

I went through all my clothes and washed them and put them in the wardrobe.

This makes me think it's not the cat, it could be something in the wardrobe, it could be the oven extractor hood, or it could be something in the floorboards (please not this!)

I'm going to get a family member with a good nose to come round, see what they think, and put everything in the wardrobe in plastic boxes in another room for a while.

I will update if I figure it out :) if anyone has any other ideas let me know

Just to say, we had mice under the floorboards who were getting in through the little hole the gas heaters piping goes into in the floor. Hope that makes sense. if the smell continues it’s maybe worth getting the floorboards pulled up and checked. We don’t have a cat it just happened,

Did you have any other signs like droppings or noises? I haven't seen or heard anything

We did have some droppings. In your case I think the mouse is probably long dead but stuck under there.

I was also going to add rodents. Do you know your neighbours, could you speak to them and see if they've had any issues with them? We had a bad smell and neighbours had told us they had rats or mice and they were in the walls, we hadn't seen any thankfully but that's what the smell was! Wasn't much we could do but it eventually went. We've since had someone out to block wherever they were coming from

What’s the pattern of the smell? Is it certain times of the day, or times of year?
I wonder if it’s the wood from the furniture, and the smell comes from when the sun shines through the window and warms the room.
If you have alternative space, I would move everything out of the room, see if there is any smell when empty (then likely to be under the floor/above in the attic?), and gradually add things back in one by one.

My house is detached, is this still worth doing? Thanks for the help

It can't possibly be a dead rodent unless there's been several successive ones, as no dead rodent would still smell after 2.5 years.

I have no idea, OP, but please let us know what it turns out to be as I feel very invested already!

I'm trying to work out the pattern still. I would say more when it's warm/sunny outside but I haven't been tracking it

That's my plan currently. Everything out, then see what it's like. I'm pregnant so I have to do it in stages lol

Sounds weird but is it the actual wood of the the wardrobe? You're going to say it's made of something else now.....I had a smell that came from a wood wardrobe that irritated the he'll out of me trying to find out what it was. I think it was some sort of glue that had been used. I completely washed it it down and used wardrobe sachets until it went.