Smelly House

I'm thinking of buying a house for £160,000 (mid terrace 3 storey, plus large cellars) with a view to doing it up over the next year or so. I live elsewhere so I won't need it for much more than storage for 6 months.

It's about 60k below market value for a comparable property in reasonable condition. It's been maintained externally, but the inside is poor. Only a sink in the kitchen, basic internal bathroom. Central heating of dubious provenance, but newly rewired. Internal walls look fine with very little blown plaster but quite dirty and unpapered, ceilings look poor/artexed. All carpets and curtains have been stripped and it's been unoccupied for at least 3 months.

The thing is the smell. It's not so much damp, as what I would imagine to be between rank socks and something rotting. I really don't want to think about the cause, but the windows have been left open permanently and someone's scattered air fresheners all around the place. The smell remains.

I'm not an especially fussy sort of person, but even I wouldn't put up with it. If I bought it I have factored in the cost of sanding all floors, decorating, skimming or replacing ceilings, stripping doors, replacing or stripping skirting boards and taking out chimney breasts at the back of the house. Would this do it, or can this type of thing need something more drastic?

Thanks, Rob

Reply to
Rob
Loading thread data ...

If it niffs that bad, something's the matter, which you prolly want to locate before moving in.

Any sign of leaks from the CH? Have you turned it on to see if loads of rads need bleeding -> possible leak? We had a slight/slow leak that was causing some mould behind skirting board -> slight niff. Look for signs of damp where skirting boards meet floors.

Can you localise the smell at all? Open all windows and close all doors, which room(s) still smell later?

Been in the attic? Anything up there or in the header tanks if any?

Otherwise examine every room carefully for anything suspicious.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Have you had a good look in the cellar ? Its not unusual for drainage / sew= erage problems to cause smells around unsealed / damp cellar walls. Simon.

Reply to
sm_jamieson

For fear of suggesting the obvious: if you can, shut the windows and doors then go back after a few days and identify the affected room(s). What sort of smell - dead animal is particularly pungent. A while ago we found a decaying rabbit and mouse underneath a spare bed (thanks cat!) and despite getting the carpet cleaned and replacing underlay (in case) the smell is still slightly hanging-around.

Reply to
NoSpam

inside is

stripped

imagine

permanently

breasts at

Check the celler for signs of digging - but then Fred West's place was demolished wasn't it so perhaps it's not bodies in the basement

AWEM

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

Any sign of it being adapted for elderly/disabled?

It could be a "neighbours report bad smell/rotting corpse" scenario.

Knock on the neighbour's doors and ask!

Reply to
Dom Ostrowski

It could be the smell is filtering through from next door!

Reply to
cynic

Imagine? you don't know? 'something rotting' is no guide at all either as there are many kinds of rot.. musty mouldy rots, fresh anaerobic bacterial rot (the foulest stink imaginable). Aerobic rots which can have no smell at all.

I really don't want to

Why not?

but the windows have been left open permanently

Its almost certainly drains or damp. Unless its cat pee. But I guess you know what cat pee smells like. Ammonia mainly. Might be a dead animal, in which case it a slightly sweetish smell that disappears over time.

no way of telling. Id assume some kind of damp problem but that's as along as a piece of string..anything from putting on some heating to replacing all the roofing, guttering, bargeboards and digging away any soil above DPC...

Likewise drains..

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

sewerage problems to cause smells around unsealed / damp cellar walls.

If it doesn't have a cellar check for blocked air-bricks ventilating the underfloor space. If possible pull up a floorboard and see whether that makes the smell worse.

Reply to
Bernard Peek

Dead vermin under the floor boards?

Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan

Could be just a dry U trap. Baz.

Reply to
Baz

We had a curious and hard to find drains issue. (definitely sewer smell so unlikely here).

A year or so after moving in to the re-furbished farmhouse we became aware of a slight drainsy pong in the entrance hall. Drain covers in our front yard are the diagonal split cast type designed to withstand lorries etc. so I was slow to react. Pong persisted so eventually I upped the covers and found a moderate back up of raw sewage. Rodding cleared the blockage and eventually the pong went away.

This event recurred at roughly 2 year intervals with the blockage point gradually moving further along the system. I began to suspect that the builders had mislaid a half brick or something which was gradually being moved to the main sewer some 100m away.

Sewers are supposed to be water tight so I got the rodding company to investigate with nothing found. The problem clearly had to do with the new building work so I put on my oldest overalls and wriggled into the inspection pit. Sure enough, where a new connection came in across the old benching, the plastic shoe had not been properly cemented in allowing a trickle of dirty water to follow the pea gravel along the pipe trench to the hall.

regards

Reply to
Tim Lamb

AIUI Dry Rot has characteristic smell. Never smelt it myself but it's supposed to be like mushrooms. See

formatting link

Reply to
Chris Hogg

Seconded. Thats how I found the dead rat in an empty house.

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Friend of mine had nothing of the sort. In fact the kitchen was sparkly new, with a new floor.

That's when he first found out about the murder, and the body that the police had to lift the floor to find...

Reply to
Andy Dingley

Yeah, we had a cat die in our old hayloft, by the time it was found it was rather maggoty and very smelly up there

Reply to
chris French

- nothing immediately evident looking at architraves, bouncing on floors, solid stairs and so on. Cellars look pretty dry. No exposed joists but ceiling intact. Certainly no ponding.

Kind of obviously, then, it's just going to be a case of sniffing it out. FWIW I'm virtually certain it's not drains or urine (know those), and it's more or less the same in each room, throughout the house.

My guess at this stage is something dead under the boards, and/or ingrained dirt over decades of not cleaning or clearing up. Neither especially nice, but should be sortable I think.

Rob

Reply to
Homer

If an old person was living there this could the cause of the smell. I know this due to bitter experience.

Reply to
Mr Pounder

While not doubting your experience, how did they manage that?

Reply to
Tim Streater

I think that age and impeding death has a smell, but not always. My deceased mother's house stank but it did not look dirty. The wife and I used to go round and try to clean it. It was not made any easier when my mum used to ask "Is my house dirty Stephen"? So sad. Old people tend to piss themselves, this sinks into the chairs etc. They spill food and do not clean it up. A month after I cleared the house out, carpets the lot - the smell was still there.

Reply to
Mr Pounder

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.