Bad Smells in House

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:cry:

Not sure where to post this:

Hi

I live in an your typical 1895 midd Victorian terrace house, 3 beds upstairs and a 1987 side bathroom extension beside the kitchen downstairs.

I moved in late Nov 2005. Apart from a whole host of previos bad DIY that needed rectifying, nothing much bothered me. Now for the last 7 months I get transient bad odours / smells emerging from beneath the floor boards from various spots around the living room, dinning room and occasionally the hallway.

One afternoon I came back home to a smell in the house that would be reminiscent of tipping out your festering house rubbish inside. Then there was lull, but recently these these smells have been coming back and lingering with varying amount of time and intensity.

There is also a sulpher type smell which comes from the downstars toilet after flushing.

I thought at first the bins smell might have been a decompossing mouse / rat? But as it keeps coming back and then disappearing, I do not know what to make of it. Unless its a family of elderly rodents?

I have now had my drain CCtv'd. via the front garden man-hole access. All appears fine.

This is not a shared drain, it starts and runs from my rear bathroom side annex completed in 1987 (an by-the-way, the occupiers and builders at the time appear happy to have built this bathroom straight over the top of the then rear garden man-hole cover, thus no access to it, so floor ply and fibre board etc will have to come up and put a nice double sealed recessed one in - as I suspect they would not have bothered to put a double sealed cover in place, probably still the original).

I very much suspect that the sulpher smell coming from the bathroom vicinty have originated from the man-hole cover under the bathroom floor and the fact that the primary drain outlet to the street drain has a tendancy to get blocked-up.

HOWEVER....

After, unblocking this drain yesterday, jetting the drain, CCTV - no signs of damage. I got a nice smell of bins/decomposing in the dinning room again this morning - I very much suspect that this smell is not connected to the main drain / blockage.

I have taken a few floor boards up around this area but no dead bodies which would account for this particular smell. I will probably need to take-up a few more boards! I am wondering whethr I have a Victorian landfill under my house! Could it be ground water? Any suggestions apart from MOVE HOUSE!
 
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Have you checked that the air bricks are all clear and the under floor space well ventilated? Are you sure you're not smelling damp wood? That would be something to worry about especially if it had a mushroomy smell.
 
I think you really must expose those inspection chamber covers that have been built over...goodness knows what the contractor was thinking of when he did that. I suspect that there has been a back-up of sewage at some time and that has lifted the lid up a bit, allowing escape. CCTV wouldn't spot a problem here, either. What a positively dreadful scenario this is - hope you get to the bottom of it soon! :)
 
Hi

Well, interestingly (or not) I put my head under the floor and noticed that the vent at the smelly end of the room (that use to vent to outside) which now sits between the dinning room and bathroom annex had some new looking wood wedged behind it. I have tried poking it with a stick but its wedged or fixed.

I don't understand why this was blocked as the bathroom extension has a vent brick to the outside and surely the idea was therefore to create airflow - I am now wondering weather they had or guessed that there might be a smell issue (having built the bathroom over the garden man-hole cover) and thus unwisely block this vent.

The floor itself is not covered by carpet or laminate, so the joists are getting some air via the living space! there is also vents at the front bay of the property (however, I have not yet checked these are working). When I took some boards up where I thought the smells were pariticularly bad, I did not notice anything intoward about them - do you suspect dry rot? Would the smell come and go? there are a few light white residue patches/stains here and there on the underside of the boards and on joists. I probably need to get some more airflow going and see what happens - cheers for anymore thoughts.
 
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It could be smells comming through from next door we have some really smelly people next door its a strong chemical smell of poo It comes through gaps in the mortar joint under the floor. We used to have onion smells from the other side but since i filled the hole its gone.
 
Are you a short person?
if you are the problem is your nose is to close to your arze...
 
Hi

Well, interestingly (or not) I put my head under the floor and noticed that the vent at the smelly end of the room (that use to vent to outside) which now sits between the dinning room and bathroom annex had some new looking wood wedged behind it. I have tried poking it with a stick but its wedged or fixed.

I don't understand why this was blocked as the bathroom extension has a vent brick to the outside and surely the idea was therefore to create airflow - I am now wondering weather they had or guessed that there might be a smell issue (having built the bathroom over the garden man-hole cover) and thus unwisely block this vent.

The floor itself is not covered by carpet or laminate, so the joists are getting some air via the living space! there is also vents at the front bay of the property (however, I have not yet checked these are working). When I took some boards up where I thought the smells were pariticularly bad, I did not notice anything intoward about them - do you suspect dry rot? Would the smell come and go? there are a few light white residue patches/stains here and there on the underside of the boards and on joists. I probably need to get some more airflow going and see what happens - cheers for anymore thoughts.



So are you saying that these morons blocked off an air brick that used to vent to the outside?? I think you really have to get the bathroom floor up and check over the manhole chamber cover. I don't suspect dry rot at this stage as the spores would probably be fruiting by now...what you are smelling is probably just a bit stale air that most houses have. Make sure all the air bricks are clear - irrespective where they are - poke something through the holes. The greater the air flow the better, for the joists sake, and you cannot rely on air exchange from between the floorboards. Good luck with it! Cheers John
 

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