Musty smell in back garden on the patio

puddy

Ive given up sitting outside as theres a strange smell on our patio. Its sort of musty, I cannot for the life of me work out where its actually coming from but you can be sitting there minding your own business and suddenly get a waft of this smell. Its sort of musty, sort of damp and funnily enough never there when its actually wet, only when its dry or sunny.

Our patio is outside the dining room, up against the house, its in a sort of corner with fencing on the boundary to next door and then some lawn on the other side which spreads out to the garden. Its in this corner that you smell it.

Chunks

Do you have decking or does next door 'in this corner....'?

nicka99

puddy - Ive been pondering this issue as well. we have a raised decking area around the back of our house and one corner smells particularly unpleasant at times - is worse when its warm than cold like something died under there but since its been 2 years (since we moved in) I think even a former owners partner buried underneath would have decomposed by now

we had the drains surveyed recently for a different matter and they go nowhere near the area. Ive concluded its either something over the fence with the neighbour or a large deciduous bush close by that gives off some weird smell when its warm (regardless if its flowering or not). Im no gardener though so have no idea what it is I need to look up !

nicka99

Chunks wrote: »

Do you have decking or does next door 'in this corner....'?

why is decking relevant ?

puddy

no, no decking on our side, i dont know what they have on the other side but i suspect not as their decked area is on the other side of their garden and i can sort of see that it ends before it gets to the fence next to us

i forgot to say that there are some mossy bits and leaves growing out of the paving, but ive sniffed these and they dont smell. i dont really know how to treat them as we have cats and a dog and i was wary of weedkiller

i dont remember smelling it early when we moved in (june 09) but has got steadily worse

puddy

nope!

bins are out the front, neighbour only smokes out the front and it doesnt smell like other drugs, hopefully no bodies and not seaweed!

im at a loss to be honest. but its meant ive hardly used the garden all summer and most of last summer too.

nicka99

likewise - bins out front (neighbours too), neighbour doesnt smoke and not near the sea. bodies I cant vouch for but all family members are present and correct !
Im still curious about the decking comment though. Im aware that rats do like living under decking and we have had a rat problem in the past but that seems to be related to the sewer (goes out front) rather than the decking at the back. also the smell comes and goes according to the weather and I would assume a rat nest or dead one would smell all the time. its been there since we moved in 2 years ago and nothing takes that long to decompose (except maybe an elephant).

puddy

i assumed the question about decking was in case it was rotten?

puddy

no, definatley not the cauliflowers!!

its a sort of musty/dampy smell, but isnt quite that. a bit of wet cement smell but also not quite

no, no drains, however, i should say that we have leaky guttering above that corner and when it rains the water drips down on the patio, some of the paint is lifting along the bottom of the wall (its under a window and the water drops on that window cill and also on the floor just beside it)

there is some 'greening' to the paint under that window at the bottom but even when im kneeling down with my nose up to the paint it doesnt smell damp or anything so i couldnt see that this was it

i keep meaning to get someone to look at the guttering

Chunks

puddy wrote: »

i assumed the question about decking was in case it was rotten?

Yes that was the kind of direction I was going or damp below the decking. Leaking guttering - tackling that might be an idea, puddy.

puddy

i know, i keep meaning to get a quote, we know what the problem is, the neighbours have metal guttering and for some reason, our guttering only joins theirss about a foot into our house and our plastic guttering seems to be above (inside) their metal guttering, so the rain runs into their gutter, across along our side and then comes under our guttering.

we also have other leaks in the kitchen and shower which they must have had when they sold it, i dont know how they lived with it as our solution (until we have enough money) is to keep a bucket under the drips! but there werent any there when we moved in