Strange smell in room

[fatherfurlong]

How do you get rid of smells in rooms.
We have lived in this house several years & there was always a noticeable smell when you opened the door. As my Mum was going to move in we had it painted, new carpet, perfumed candles etc. The smell did dissipate for a while as my Mum used a lot of hairspray & perfume but I could still smell it faintly.
About to redecorate & this time will remove paper from walls & repaper paint new carpet again etc bit what extra can we do? There is a large boxed in area that hubby is currently taking apart to see if anything is in there. Any suggestions ( about how to eradicate the smell not what's behind the boxed in area).

What does it smell like?

We had an odd fishy/glue odour... It was the light fitting in the ceiling. Electrics were buggered.

I don't think you can eradicate it without finding the source.

We've also had a fishy smell - from an electric shower. And a weird musty smell - turned out to be a hidden very small leak which had turned the carpet in a cupboard mouldy.

Once you find the source, fresh air and fresh floorboards/paint/carpet/whatever is affected.

Could there be a water leak? Mould or mildew? Is the ventilation ok? Could you lift a floorboard? That's us the time to find the source.

You’re not living at Cranley Gardens are you?

Yes need more detail. Agree that electrics can be a cause of this. Also damp from roof if under the roof space - but you would see signs of that.

We had that.

Has someone chucked a fish under the floorboards? Also knew someone who sewed prawns into curtain linings (had a shit landlord apparently) but if you've redecorated that's probaby one to discount.

Could you describe the smell? Damp, fishy, musty (think old books), pet odour?

We moved into a house which was owned by a heavy smoker. We had to get the walls and ceiling skimmed and new flooring to get rid of it. When we viewed the agent had obviously aired it before, I could detect a whiff but nothing as bad as it was when we moved in. Honestly it made me gag.

It's not a fishy smell. If you sniffed the scalp of someone who doesn't wash their hair frequently, it smells like that, like sebum. It's a very unpleasant odour but there is now nothing in there apart from the carpet & bed. There is no textile headboard which might soak up smells It's wood. There was nothing in built in box either. We will remove the carpet in the next week or so but if we find nothing I'm at a loss!

Do you have gas? The reason I ask is that we had that, i ended up calling out Gas Emergency - the main line into the house was leaking. We ended up having to have the line re-routed or it would have meant digging up the entire ground floor. The engineer thinks that based on experience, when the piping was laid (1960s) instead of using 1-length of plastic routing they joined several lengths together & 50+ years under a concrete floor had destroyed the join then eaten into the copper and voila. That had an almost greasy smell.

Could it be oil on the floor boards under the carpet? You could try giving them a good scrub when you lift the carpet. Or just thinking it could be the underlay smell from underneath the carpet.

Oh i bet it will be the carpet. And/or the underlay.

Carpets harbour all sorts of yuk and the underlay soaks up all the washed through gunk when the top layer carpet gets cleaned.

In my unfortunate experience, I can tell you that a long-dead mouse, old mouse urine trails, and/or a historic bird nest in a chimney breast or loft space can create sour, sweaty, unwashed hair-like odours.
In my case it was from a neighbouring property through a shared chimney stack.
Another option our builder checked (but it wasn’t this) was the old air brick/vent in case it could be pulling in odours. (It wasn’t)

If th previous user of the room had poor hygene, it may well be the carpet and/or mattress.

My mum came to stay and sat in a room we didn’t use much. She noticed a strange smell in there. We suspected it might be the gas fire and the gas engineer called. My OH said “there’s a strange smell when my MIL sits in here” I had to reassure mum we didn’t really think it was her! BTW it was the gas fire!

We just had that in a national trust holiday cottage bathroom. Weird fishy smell and husband said it’s that shower main switch socket. Luckily they came out within half an hour and replaced it and the smell went away. Never realised electrical issues caused a fishy smell before that.

We’ve been viewing houses recently and there were quite a few with this exact stale, greasy smell that you described 🤢 put me right off.

Our old house had smokers in it. We were there 11 years and I still got a smell of smoke when I went in. These smells seem to permeate the very brickwork of the house.