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

BikingBud

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.

Might also generate a letter from the solicitors about unacceptable standards of cleanliness 

Brie

BikingBud said:

Might also generate a letter from the solicitors about unacceptable standards of cleanliness 

Probably didn't get his full deposit back either.

bouicca21

My first house had a sickly sweet smell in two of the bedrooms.  Their two  children (7 year old twins) were either incontinent or just not adequately potty trained.  Ripped out the carpets and underlay, washed the floor, left the rooms empty for a couple of weeks and all was ok.

Sickly  sweet is not how I would describe the smell of dead rodent - and I’ve had a dead rodent under the floorboards in one house and under the floor boards in a central London office building.  Nasty in quite a different way.

[Deleted User]

Coming up on winter is not the ideal time for this as you want to be able to air it out.

Even if you find the source of the smell, chances are everything in it will have to be ripped out and replaced to get rid of it. Carpets, wallpaper, maybe more.

justwhat

I nearly bought a property that previously had a german shephard "living" in one of the bedrooms. A bottle of febreeze and a lick of paint does not get rid of all smells.

The above room would have needed ripped back to the shell to remedy the smell. Also depends on someone's definition of a bad smell(eg how bad is bad lol)

lincroft1710

Brie said:

BikingBud said:

Might also generate a letter from the solicitors about unacceptable standards of cleanliness 

Probably didn't get his full deposit back either.

He'd been a tenant for many years so doubtful if they had deposits in those days. Also the landlord had recently changed.  A few days after leaving the flat he was lucky to receive rent free accommodation for the next 4 months, but a guy called Albert put a stop to that.

ele_91

We bought a house where the owner had smoked weed in the bedrooms, since moving in we have also discovered remains of a grow loft in the roof. We cleaned all carpets and aired all rooms out with windows open as much as possible for the first month, I also bought plug in air fresheners for each room. Painting the walls and a good clean of everything (doors, woodwork, curtains) has also made a huge difference. We can no longer smell it and neither can visitors. 

Maskface

What about dry rot or rising damp? They have a smell to them.

[Deleted User]

I bought an inside smoker's flat & had to wash all the walls so many times & re-decorate plus no soft furnishings stayed. 
It was ok because I wanted to gut the flat out anyway, depends on how bad the smell is I think! 

JackieSparkle

A sickly sweet smell sounds like a dead rodent to me. My parents had that smell in their kitchen, it was awful. They took the floorboards up and found a dead rat. It was hardly decomposed at all, so would've gone on smelling for some time if they hadn't removed it. I would suggest trying to locate the spot where it's at its worst and then investigating underneath cupboards and under the floor.