House odour

Alexa light fitting used to be made of bakelite, an early form of plastic. When it got old and warmed up it stank.

Elizabeth1, my son's fiancee"s mother has just had the same problem. She was painting her bedroom with valspar paint from B&Q and it was horrible. She has had a refund and money off the new paint. Glad you discovered the reason for the smell.

Coolgran I think it was perhaps late 2017 when Valspar started experiencing this problem

What a surprise.
And interesting as DH and I have done a lot of indoor emulsion painting over the past year. All of it Valspar as they can mix such wonderful colours to perfection.
Happy to report we didn't have any problem.

Well I never!

Lucky you spotted that in the paper, Elizabeth1.

I once used some low-VOC / ecological paint that had a really weird smell for ages, but it did disappear eventually.

A resolution! Excellent ??

That's great news Elizabeth, You can go on your next holiday with peace of mind.
Good for the paint company to admit it was their fault.

Paint! Who would have thunk it? I wish mine had been paint instead of a dead rat! Glad you got it sorted Elizabeth1!

Now that was a nice thread to read. Coherent posts giving constructive suggestions. I am pleased for Elizabeth that the problem was solved and funnily enough the cause wasn't any that others had suggested.

I would have had the pest control in after the first page, but you have now saved that money and may even be better off if they are offering compensation.

Glad to hear that,*Elizabeth1*. You must be relieved.?

Valspar has come up trumps they’ve offered us a reasonable cost to redo the bedroom. It seems they’ve removed a substance from the emulsion causing the odour. So pleased I’ve got to the root of the problem.

Bluebelle DD had the smoke from next door problem in her bedroom. She decided the smoke was seeping through the holes in the wall where the floor joists were. New tenants had taken up the carpets and had bare boards and rugs.

Given the direction of the rafters the floor boards ran parallel with the party wall so DD took up first two boards and sprayed builders foam all along the party wall under the floor where the rafters ran and replaced the floor boards. It worked she can now sleep without passive smoking.

jusnoneed I phoned the designated B&Q number and I’m now waiting on a return call or email. I was told there is a covering emulsion which will take the smell away. When I told them folks were saying the original emulsion caused fungi etc I was told this was a media scaremongering and B&Q have looked into this. Fingers crossed.

Hope that solves the problem Elizabeth1, have they given any clue to help get rid of the smell?

I remember hunting down a dreadful smell in the kitchen, thought something had popped it's clogs in there. It took me a couple of days to discover it was a rotting potato in a bag.

My DD used the Valspar paint in her hallway, poor cat got the blame for the awful smell. It was horrendous and smelt for months, not sure what she did about it because despite the smell she sold the house and moved!

When we first moved onto our old house we could hear mice scratching around in the walls and some of the ceilings. We got the pest operatives in (Council did rats but not mice) who put down bait. One of the mice died in between the living room ceiling and flat roof. We lived in the kitchen for a fortnight.

I have not had rodents in the house, but a few years ago, for about a week I was plagued by a dreadful smell in my kitchen.

This turned out to be water left in the pan after I had boiled pasta and it was festering on the top of the high level grill we had then . Very stinky.
I am not a domestic goddess.

Think I’ve got it! A little report from the newspapers. And yes we’ve had this room painted.

B&Q says it will compensate hundreds of people who experienced bad smells after painting their homes with Valspar paint that it sold them.
Customers have likened the smell to cat urine and rotten animals. They say the smell gets stronger in hot weather and if the windows are open.

I’m on the case again. I think the smell went away previously because I’ve always kept the door open but my kind neighbour who looks after my house always closes the door. I’ll let her into my thoughts then I’ll get her to leave this door open in future.

I think most of you are right about a dead rodent. A friend of my sister who lived in a Tudor house had a similar problem of a truly foul smell. Shortly before they arranged to tear off all the wonderful old oak wainscotting, they discovered that their three-year-old daughter had a dead rat tucked cosily in her doll's pram.

Elizabeth1 leave the door open next time

I had a bad smell in the corner of my living room for ages I tried everything I found a hole in the skirting behind inbuilt book shelves and blocked that up but could still smell it for about four months then it disappeared pretty sure it was a dead rat as I had found one had come in through the washing machine out pipe previously Blocked that up and haven’t had any smells since then apart from one bedroom which stinks of cigarette smoke from next door ( old house with Victorian fireplaces in the bedrooms ) tried everything to get rid of it without any luck

'Does it seem to be' (didn't preview before posting).

Does it coming from the floor, Elizabeth 1? Is it possible to lift a floorboard or two, to see if there's a dead mouse or something down there?

Once again after a 3 week holiday away from home that putrid smell in our spare bedroom has returned. As the door is kept closed for this period of time the smell has intensified. Please please it’s driving me crazy. What’s the next step?