Would you buy a smelly house? Anyone had experience of buying a pungent property?

firebubble

Sadly not! I've never smelt anything like it - the window was practically sealed with black mould. It was gross, but a good scrub, two coats of blocking paint and a new carpet, and you'd never know.

jonners666

Davesnave said:

Our current property was smelly. Foolishly, we hired a carpet cleaner, which made things worse.

After  using the carpets to clear garden ground and re-painting, the smells vanished. With the colour scheme we inherited, we knew we'd be splashing the magnolia as a first step anyway, so it was just a good incentive to get that done ...fast.

Luckily, the floors were concrete. I think the human occupants had been reasonably continent, but I certainly couldn't vouch for the pets.

Quite. Our house was previously the home to an older couple and SEVEN house cats. 

They must have sprayed liberal amounts of fabreeze or something, as there was no smell on any of our 3 viewings. 

When we moved in though, the smell of urine was... strong.

We took up the carpets, bleached the floorboards, and put down new carpet and underlay - that seems to have solved it thank goodness! 

AdrianC

AdrianC said:

firebubble said:

I had some smelly rooms - as others have said, dust, dirt, old cooking oil, old grubby/soft furnishings, black mould and teenage boy were the culprits.

A thorough scrubbing, de-moulding, opening the windows, repainting, washing/replacing soft furnishings and for the last, painting the room with Zinser blocking paint before fresh paint has resolved it.

I think I hope you mean the penultimate cause...

firebubble said:

Sadly not! I've never smelt anything like it - the window was practically sealed with black mould. It was gross, but a good scrub, two coats of blocking paint and a new carpet, and you'd never know.

The last on your list was the teenage boy, not the mould...

lookstraightahead

List of possibilities:

damp
lack of circulating air (people don't ventilate their houses anywhere near enough)
Dogs/cats/pets
tobacco
smells from appliances - washing machine/dryer etc
Dirty upholstery/carpets/materials

Apart from obvious damp, ventilation is well up there. We never ever have all doors and windows closed even when it snows. I can really tell when we come back from holiday etc (not that our house is anything but fresh smelling 😜)

Ditzy_Mitzy

lincroft1710 said:

Back in late 1952 a Mr John Reginald Halliday Christie murdered his wife and hid the body under the floorboards of the living room of his ground floor flat. In early 1953 he murdered three more women and put their bodies in an alcove in the kitchen and covered the entrance to the alcove with wallpaper. He left the flat days after the final murder and a new tenant moved in. 18 days after the final murder, the new tenant was redecorating the kitchen when he discovered the three bodies.


Now wouldn't that flat have had a rather pungent smell with four dead bodies in it.

It was probably largely dependent on the time of year, back in those days.  If it was winter and the place was single glazed and heated by paraffin heaters or electric fires, it's likely that the ambient temperature in the flat was quite low.  That would have kept the smell down to some extent. 

theartfullodger

Rip out all carpets & anything else (eg curtains) that looks dodgy.

Then buy a 6-park or more of "Neutradol" - see
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Neutradol-Freshener-Original-140g-Packs/dp/B013SYWBY2

open them, leave one in each room for a few days, see what it's like then. & windows open.

If still a problem get new neutradol and/or joss-sticks (works for me in minging rental properties of mine..)

jacko74

A sickly sweet smell suggests a dead mouse, or possibly numerous dead mice if the smell is that strong it's noticeable throughout the house.

theartfullodger

Could be what a relative of mine did when evicted by an unpleasant landlord: Hid fish inside curtain poles, under floor boards, sewed into bottom of curtains etc etc etc etc   

Dark_Star

Possibly something dead ( bird/ mouse etc.) under something, in a cupboard or somewhere not overly noticeable at first glance. As a sweet sickly smell is often caused by dead stuff. I have 3 cats who like to gift me with surprises….Once that’s found, gone & cleaned, it will go 😀

maisie_cat

When we bought the house before this it did smell something awful, the seller was an elderly smoker and drinker who didn't clean.
Within a week the carpets, underlay and that velvety wallpaper were gone and the curtains washed. The first weekend I tried to clean the kitchen of the layers of solid grease, when I couldn't do so to my satisfaction I ripped the kitchen out. Hubby came back from work and the kitchen was on the patio! But the house smelled much better after that, we didn't find any bodies but there were lots of beer cans under the floorboards!