Curious fishy smell in bathroom...

something dead in an air vent or under the floor boards

Hi,

One thing worth checking is (believe it or not) the light fitting. Old ones can emit a horrid fishy smell when they get hot. We had that in a house we moved into: it drove us nuts trying to work out what it was, because it only seemed to be a problem at night. Of course, with hindsight that was when the light was turned on. Duhh !!

Cheers, Sim> No, honestly, I'm not making this up...

Another vote for the light fitting - have you recently changed the bulb and perhaps put a higher wattage one in ? Or possibly a loose wire heating a bakelite fitting (switch or light fitting)

Nick

Fishy smell used to be overheating bakelite - how old is your wiring? An old junction box under the floorboards perhaps?

Owain

try removing the girlfriend from the bathroom? :)

Your grirlfriend? ;-)

You can also get a urine type of smell from overheating the modern urea formaldehyde stuff as well...

Vote 3 - recently chnaged the light fitting in our bedroom due to this very problem....

Vote 4 - I'd forgotten about this but it's true!

Mary

... And Vote 5. I had exactly this problem in a rented house & we spend ages trying to suss out what it was. We thought it was something to do with the bath as it only happened after someone had happened a bath ... the real reason was that the light was only normally left on for long enough when someone bathed.

My Dad suggested the light fitting - we changed it & never had the problem again.

Vote 6 - although just changing the flex seemed to cure it...

Just remaking the connection so it didn't overheat might have cured it.

Owain

Vote 7. If only I had found uk.diy before we ripped out the carpet and the curtains and the roller blind.

Darryl

Thanks for your replies. It looks like I need replace items in the following order.

1. Light fitting
2. Light wiring
3. Air vent, extractor wiring
4. Girlfriend :-)

The message from "Martin" contains these words:

A curious fish?

I'd concur with the common suggestion of dying electrics. I've had a couple of fittings go fishy.

Keep the girlfriend. It's her house.

Mary

Antique immersion heater frying itself?

It may not be, but it will end up that way.

There are two sorts of women. Those that end up owning the house, and those that end up owning the house after they have manufactured an excuse to get you out of it.

Research suggests that only 35% of men kiss their wife goodbye as they leave the house... however 95% of them kiss their house goodbye when they leave their wife!