Dog odor??? Mold??? Decaying carcass??????

Log in / Sign Up

List of Forums + New Post Recipe Box Usergroups Following My Posts Bookmarks

Private Messages Advanced Search Rules New User Guide FAQ Advertise Contact Us

Forum -> Household Management -> Cleaning & Laundry

View latest: 24h 48h 72h

raich

Sun, May 05 2019, 10:02 pm

I am at my WITS END here, ladies. Help!!

We moved into a new house about two years ago. The previous owners had a (rather large) dog whose smell we unfortunately did not notice until after we bought the house. I assume that might be what is causing this MALODOROUS WAFT EVERYWHERE I GO IN THE HOUSE.

The smell waxes and wanes. It is most apparent when we come home after being away for a few days and the A/C or central heating has been off.

We changed most of the carpets, professionally cleaned the ones we didn't, and washed down all the walls. The wood floors have been washed/scrubbed too many times to count. We were not able to scrape/sand/restain/refinish the wood floors and I wonder if that's where the smell is hiding out.

Or maybe it's not the dog at all? Maybe it's something hidden in the ductwork, or some mold/mildew issue. There is no apparent leakage or wetness anywhere, though.

Does anyone know of a service where they come down to your house and tell you the source of your smell and what to do about it? I keep a pretty clean house (if I say so myself, and with a handful of boys to boot!) but this smell makes me embarrassed to have company or friends over. I feel like a dysfunctional homemaker and like people will judge me for the way my house smells. And it's just gross to come home to a beautiful house that smells stale and YUCK.
Air fresheners and boiling cinnamon on the stove and keeping the windows open are great, but basically just bandaids.

Please help me restore my home to domestic and olfactory bliss! Any ideas??

Last edited by raich on Fri, May 15 2020, 11:20 am; edited 1 time in total

nchr

Sun, May 05 2019, 10:11 pm

I'd start with either a home inspector or a pest control company. You shouldn't have dog smell, so it is probably coming from something else.

Rachel8177

Sun, May 05 2019, 10:13 pm

I can relate. By us a dehumidifier helped a lot.

ra_mom

Sun, May 05 2019, 10:17 pm

Are you able to get down on your hands and knees and really sniff to see if it's the actual carpets that weren't changed or the wood floors? If that's not the source, you can PM for a mold specialist who I used and trust because he didn't try to make money off me - told me what he thought it was (not mold) and said to leave things alone, unlike the other "specialist" who just kept doing more tests for more money that he knew were just going to be inconclusive.

amother

Smokey

Sun, May 05 2019, 10:21 pm

Remove all carpets from previous owners !! Even if they were professionally cleaned, carpets soak up urine and the odor never really leaves ! When the air is stagnant or it’s humid , you will smell it again and again and again !! Speaking from experience ..

raich

Mon, May 06 2019, 9:10 pm

Thanks for the ideas!

The only carpet we kept that might be the issue is in the basement, but the smell can be apparent even all the way upstairs. Is it possible for the smell to carry around the house like that?

amother

Smokey

Mon, May 06 2019, 11:10 pm

Yes. Vents carry the smell . Could also be something else though. Wouldn’t it be great if there were an Odor Elimination company that would guarantee to figure out the problem !

raich

Tue, May 07 2019, 5:28 pm

Oh my! I got down and put my nose to the floor and sniffed. Definitely doesn't smell good! And that's with many many washes. Must be inside the floor itself. Any ideas on deodorizing wood floors...???

Thanks all for your ideas and help!

ra_mom

Tue, May 07 2019, 5:39 pm

raich wrote:

Call a floor company. You need to find out if scraping down and refinishing will help, or if the wood actually needs to be replaced. Pets can do a lot of damage.

raich

Tue, May 07 2019, 8:55 pm

Argh! Guess that's my next step....

Note to self and others:
NIX HOMES WITH PETS!!

simpleme

Wed, May 08 2019, 6:30 am

Did you change the filters for the ac/heating since you moved in?

raich

Wed, May 08 2019, 10:20 pm

Yup, and had the vents professionally cleaned, too, right in the beginning

amother

Taupe

Wed, May 08 2019, 10:32 pm

Oh my,similar story! Following for any advice!
Our house also always smells stale and dank. I try to keep windows open (which only works for a few months out of the year). I am also embarrassed to have people over. We keep things clean and neat. Have one carpet in a kid's bedroom upstairs, and the rest is all floor. No pets.

We have:
removed basement carpet and installed flooring ($3,000)
had a mold study done; a small bit of mold was found and remediated ($4,000)
air duct vent cleaning ($500)
replaced the furnace altogether - (had to do this anyway, but it was $7,000)

Am at my wit's end! We have lived in other houses before with no problem, so it's not US or something we're doing. It's the house but cannot figure out what. Coming home is depressing every day. Who wants to come home to a bad smell? Sad

amother

Coffee

Thu, May 09 2019, 1:17 am

You're just reminding me, when I was a kid, there was an awful smell in my room for weeks or months. We were convinced some small creature had died inside the walls.

One fine day, we must have Pesach-cleaned and moved a piece of furniture (Mom was not much of a balebusteh). And there we found a cup with just a bit of milk at the bottom that had spoiled, solidified and stank.

I doubt that's your problem though. It is possible to have a dead rodent in the walls, though eventually they decompose enough to stop smelling, if that were it. (Another little tidbit. When we redid our kitchen and ripped out our cabinets, we found the skeletons of two squirrels. I don't know if they got in through piping or ductwork or what, but they must have been there a couple of decades. So anything is possible...)

But you could try putting bowls with little pieces of paper towels soaked in tea tree oil into the corners of all the rooms. We did this after painting and it definitely helped. Or maybe baking soda all over the carpet?

amother

Violet

Thu, May 09 2019, 1:36 am

With pets sometimes the urine can go thru to the subflooring so who knows if refinishing will help.
We also have an odor issue since my stove vent doesn't work right & my house always smells like onions. It's mortifying .

And my teens rooms just have a funky smell no matter if I open the windows daily- how do u get rid of that smell?!

raich

Thu, May 09 2019, 9:48 pm

Scrubbed my floors tonight with vinegar solution....

Now my house smells like A SALAD!

I guess that's better than dog...

LOL

amother

Ivory

Fri, May 10 2019, 12:09 am

I know someone who had a similar issue.
Her house had an ongoing smell of urine.
They tried everything, and in the end they solved it.
Someone went into one of the crawl spaces and found some leaky duct or something.
It doesn't have to be from a dog to smell that bad.

Page 1 of 1