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!