What is this stink in my front bedroom?!?
January 13, 2010 1:27 PM Subscribe
What is this stink in my upstairs room>!?
Since yesterday evening there has been a bad smell in my front bedroom. I thought perhaps a visitor might have had a particularly strong/unusual body odour, or brought a bad smell in with them. I sprayed perfume around the room and otherwise ignored it.
It didn't really smell like body odour, though. And overnight it's gotten denser and darker so that the room is thick with it.
I know there've been other questions about what to do about such smells, but I'm asking what it is.
I don't know how to describe this smell. It doesn't smell like rotting garbage. The nearest thing to it that I've ever smelled in my life was the smell of a skunk that got run over on the highway in winter, but it doesn't really smell like that either. There is a note of pickle somewhere in the smell, but it doesn't smell overall like pickles.
All I can say is that, if I drew this smell, it would look like a charcoal wash on cartridge paper. Does that make any sense?
All I can think of is that it's something dead. I haven't experienced the smell of decomposition before though, so I can't be sure.
I live in England in a terraced house, originally two-up two-down, with an attic (no floor so we don't go in there) and no basement. The house is made of brick. The bedrooms are upstairs. Below and to the right of the room there is a brick passageway leading from the street to the backyard. The chimney straddles two houses and is at the apex of the roof, directly above the passageway. There are ventilation grilles at the base of the house, but the holes are not much wider than my finger. There are no windows in the attic.
Immediately behind the room, sharing a wall with it, is my room. I cannot smell anything in here, or in the hallway that leads to the room. It's in this hallway that the trapdoor to the attic is located.
We don't have mice because for decades, we had cats, and there are some things near our back door that they scent-marked so emphatically that we can still faintly smell it at times, even years after the last cat lived here. I have only ever seen one mouse, a couple of months ago, who died undetected near the back door - odorlessly. I can't believe a mouse would have gone all the way to the front of the house and upstairs just to die mysteriously, either.
So if the smell is a dead thing, what is it and how did it get here (where)? If it's not a dead thing, what is it?
Since yesterday evening there has been a bad smell in my front bedroom. I thought perhaps a visitor might have had a particularly strong/unusual body odour, or brought a bad smell in with them. I sprayed perfume around the room and otherwise ignored it.
It didn't really smell like body odour, though. And overnight it's gotten denser and darker so that the room is thick with it.
I know there've been other questions about what to do about such smells, but I'm asking what it is.
I don't know how to describe this smell. It doesn't smell like rotting garbage. The nearest thing to it that I've ever smelled in my life was the smell of a skunk that got run over on the highway in winter, but it doesn't really smell like that either. There is a note of pickle somewhere in the smell, but it doesn't smell overall like pickles.
All I can say is that, if I drew this smell, it would look like a charcoal wash on cartridge paper. Does that make any sense?
All I can think of is that it's something dead. I haven't experienced the smell of decomposition before though, so I can't be sure.
I live in England in a terraced house, originally two-up two-down, with an attic (no floor so we don't go in there) and no basement. The house is made of brick. The bedrooms are upstairs. Below and to the right of the room there is a brick passageway leading from the street to the backyard. The chimney straddles two houses and is at the apex of the roof, directly above the passageway. There are ventilation grilles at the base of the house, but the holes are not much wider than my finger. There are no windows in the attic.
Immediately behind the room, sharing a wall with it, is my room. I cannot smell anything in here, or in the hallway that leads to the room. It's in this hallway that the trapdoor to the attic is located.
We don't have mice because for decades, we had cats, and there are some things near our back door that they scent-marked so emphatically that we can still faintly smell it at times, even years after the last cat lived here. I have only ever seen one mouse, a couple of months ago, who died undetected near the back door - odorlessly. I can't believe a mouse would have gone all the way to the front of the house and upstairs just to die mysteriously, either.
So if the smell is a dead thing, what is it and how did it get here (where)? If it's not a dead thing, what is it?
Perhaps a rat died in your wall. I hate to say it, but there's not much you can do for that other than waiting for it to stop smelling, unless you want to tear open the wall and fix that, which most likely will not look perfect (unless you have wood paneling).
Even with cats, I would say it's still possible you'd get a few vermin wandering inside crevices of your home in the winter, especially if you aren't so good on insulation. Maybe you could try plugging up some holes on the exterior of your building with some cold weather foaming epoxy, as it sounds to me like it's almost certainly some sort of dead rodent, unless you happened to take in some very rich food and forget about it.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:32 PM on January 13, 2010
Even with cats, I would say it's still possible you'd get a few vermin wandering inside crevices of your home in the winter, especially if you aren't so good on insulation. Maybe you could try plugging up some holes on the exterior of your building with some cold weather foaming epoxy, as it sounds to me like it's almost certainly some sort of dead rodent, unless you happened to take in some very rich food and forget about it.
posted by mccarty.tim at 1:32 PM on January 13, 2010
Can you pinpoint the source of the smell? Does any part of the room smell particularly strong? Maybe something spilled on a patch of carpet or on/behind the furniture. Maybe there's a dead hooker inside the bed. It's hard to say.
posted by waxboy at 1:39 PM on January 13, 2010
posted by waxboy at 1:39 PM on January 13, 2010
It's been cold last week in the UK. Hence, mice search themselves indoors, and they are starved. Very likely one of those little critters withstood the cat smell, crept around between the walls an/or floorboards and went to the other side because of a lack of yummy.
I never knew skunk as a kid; later, we drove over one in the US, so now I can compare: same family of smells, if very much less intense. Same smell as the poor mouse that got flattened between the sheets of our guest bed by a typewriter when I was little (it took a while to find that one).
posted by Namlit at 1:46 PM on January 13, 2010
I never knew skunk as a kid; later, we drove over one in the US, so now I can compare: same family of smells, if very much less intense. Same smell as the poor mouse that got flattened between the sheets of our guest bed by a typewriter when I was little (it took a while to find that one).
posted by Namlit at 1:46 PM on January 13, 2010
I once tracked a mystery smell down to being a mouse that my cat had killed sometime previously (he didn't bring them to me, he would just let them lay where they'd fallen). It's possible the last mouse didn't smell because you found it before it started, and the thing you smell now is just something you haven't found yet.
I'd say that since it smells organic, a dead thing is probably it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:48 PM on January 13, 2010
I'd say that since it smells organic, a dead thing is probably it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:48 PM on January 13, 2010
Another vote for a dead rodent in the walls. Perhaps it got in through an attic vent or a crack somewhere or up from under the house. The good news is, if that's what it is, the smell will dissipate in a week or two.
posted by cecic at 2:00 PM on January 13, 2010
posted by cecic at 2:00 PM on January 13, 2010
P.S. - a mouse can squeeze through a hole as small around as a pencil, so your vent covers with holes as big around as your finger would definitely let a mouse in (assuming you have don't have REALLY thin fingers!). I could see a mouse wanting to find safety from the cold weather you've been having.
posted by cecic at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2010
posted by cecic at 2:03 PM on January 13, 2010
I've smelled a decomposing-in-the-walls large rodent and it had a faintly sweet/sickly odor. This is certainly the time of year that they'll make their way out of compost piles and garages and get into a house. Also, if it's a squirrel or rat, it'll get pretty pungent within a week or so. If you MUST get rid of the smell, (which could last until next winter) check out the attic, then you can cut holes in the walls and us a small digital flash camera to look around. I've had success with a video camera on the night vision setting.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:26 PM on January 13, 2010
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:26 PM on January 13, 2010
It could be mold. Do you have carpeting? If so, how old is the carpeting?
One of the worst experiences in my life happened when I moved into the upper floor of an older (early 70s era) house. The place smelled fine when we looked at it, but after we moved in it stank, and the smell seemed to be coming from the master bedroom. It smelled like sewage or something, and was just awful.
Turns out the carpets were really old, and when they were steam-cleaned it activated some sort of mold bloom that caused the smell. The carpets were removed, the smell went away (but then again, so did we).
posted by KokuRyu at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2010
One of the worst experiences in my life happened when I moved into the upper floor of an older (early 70s era) house. The place smelled fine when we looked at it, but after we moved in it stank, and the smell seemed to be coming from the master bedroom. It smelled like sewage or something, and was just awful.
Turns out the carpets were really old, and when they were steam-cleaned it activated some sort of mold bloom that caused the smell. The carpets were removed, the smell went away (but then again, so did we).
posted by KokuRyu at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2010
Dead critter stink: got a tip right here on AskMe a while back when we had a dead something in the kitchen.
Following the tip, we put ground coffee in a cast iron skillet on low heat, round the clock, swapping the coffee as needed. It really works. Do not try to cover with perfumed or scented room smells, it will only make things worse.
Don't know how long people think "not long" is but when you've got a decaying corpse of an animal in your house one day seems like forever. In our case, it was over a week before the coffee fry ended.
posted by trinity8-director at 3:12 PM on January 13, 2010 [6 favorites]
Following the tip, we put ground coffee in a cast iron skillet on low heat, round the clock, swapping the coffee as needed. It really works. Do not try to cover with perfumed or scented room smells, it will only make things worse.
Don't know how long people think "not long" is but when you've got a decaying corpse of an animal in your house one day seems like forever. In our case, it was over a week before the coffee fry ended.
posted by trinity8-director at 3:12 PM on January 13, 2010 [6 favorites]
Is the smell global or can it be tracked down to a vent or ..?
The two times I've encountered this were as follows. The first was a bathroom where the shower had not been used in 2+ years. The trap completely evaporated and there was no water seal; ergo the occasional (not constant) ingress of sewer odor. This is easily remedied (run the water for a minute now and then).
The other time was an overfilled septic tank and a failed ventilation duct under the home. The ducting fell apart and was picking up the smell of the nearby septic tank.
posted by rr at 3:58 PM on January 13, 2010
The two times I've encountered this were as follows. The first was a bathroom where the shower had not been used in 2+ years. The trap completely evaporated and there was no water seal; ergo the occasional (not constant) ingress of sewer odor. This is easily remedied (run the water for a minute now and then).
The other time was an overfilled septic tank and a failed ventilation duct under the home. The ducting fell apart and was picking up the smell of the nearby septic tank.
posted by rr at 3:58 PM on January 13, 2010
On preview exactly what rr said about a dry trap.
If your vent stack has frosted over the siphon effect can pull the water out of a drain trap in the same way, no evaporation required.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:16 PM on January 13, 2010
If your vent stack has frosted over the siphon effect can pull the water out of a drain trap in the same way, no evaporation required.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:16 PM on January 13, 2010
If you saw one mouse "a couple of months ago," then you have mice. Maybe lots of them. Mice don't give a damn about nonexistent cats.
Dead mouse. Maybe dead mice.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 7:15 PM on January 13, 2010
Dead mouse. Maybe dead mice.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 7:15 PM on January 13, 2010
Response by poster: Okay, thanks for all this.
There is only one shower in the house and it's used daily, so, no dry trap. There's no septic tank either. The flooring is only 5 years old and it's laminate. So the smell is coming from something dead, probably one or more mice.
My friend echoed Namlit's and cecic's explanations that it's mice seeking shelter from the cold. Apparently they get in through vents seeking warmth, run through the heating pipes, and then die due to lack of noms. If I had known, I would probably have fed the little guy. This is why it was better when we had cats on whom to lavish my sentimentality.
In the immediate term, I guess I'll just wait for the smell to go away. Flies won't be a problem this time of year.
I could look in the attic and I'll take note of the recommended techniques if I ever need to do that... but I'd be afraid it would be like that scene in Jaws with the hull of the boat so I won't. But last night, just as I was falling asleep, I could swear I heard little feet running along above my ceiling and a high pitched eek eek eek noise - I'll put that down to the power of suggestion unless I hear it again though.
And in the meantime, my friend will lend me a humane trap.
posted by tel3path at 12:25 PM on January 14, 2010
There is only one shower in the house and it's used daily, so, no dry trap. There's no septic tank either. The flooring is only 5 years old and it's laminate. So the smell is coming from something dead, probably one or more mice.
My friend echoed Namlit's and cecic's explanations that it's mice seeking shelter from the cold. Apparently they get in through vents seeking warmth, run through the heating pipes, and then die due to lack of noms.
In the immediate term, I guess I'll just wait for the smell to go away. Flies won't be a problem this time of year.
I could look in the attic and I'll take note of the recommended techniques if I ever need to do that... but I'd be afraid it would be like that scene in Jaws with the hull of the boat so I won't. But last night, just as I was falling asleep, I could swear I heard little feet running along above my ceiling and a high pitched eek eek eek noise - I'll put that down to the power of suggestion unless I hear it again though.
And in the meantime, my friend will lend me a humane trap.
posted by tel3path at 12:25 PM on January 14, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by gnutron at 1:31 PM on January 13, 2010