Weird smell!!!

If your fridge has a little hole near the bottom at the back then there is definitely a drip tray somewhere. That’s the best way to tell before you try and pull it out. I’d lay money that that’s it. If your fridge is frost free (doesn’t ice up and need defrosted all the time) the water is going somewhere.

I don’t know how you check, could it be a small leak of freon gas from your fridge/freezer.

We had a bad smell in the kitchen which was coming from the drain outside. It wasn't blocked or anything but somehow the smell came into the kitchen via the plughole in the sink, which shouldn't happen because of the water that sits in the u-bend, but it did. We jet washed the drain and disinfected and smell went. Also if you have a little caddy in the kitchen that holds the dish cloth etc, make sure there's nothing in the bottom that's gone nasty. Can just be stale water sometimes. I do sympathise.

I can't help with your smell, but remember spending weeks looking for the source of the 'fishy' smell in our kitchen.

Original bakelite light fitting was the culprit!

We had a similar sounding smell in one of our bedrooms, it turned out to be the plastic light bulb holder.
Hope you find the source soon.

If your fridge freezer de-frosts itself, it will have a little hole in the back fridge wall. Try poking a long plastic cable tie or similar down the hole and wiggle it about.
Our fridge smelled, (not of urine though), and despite thorough cleaning, we couldn’t work out what it was. Also there was a build up of water on bottom shelf.
After cleaning out the drain hole, it seemed much better.

Otherwise, it sounds like the cat to me, I’m afraid.

Nonogran, I so wish it was something like that! The entire kitchen was refitted two years ago. It's an old cottage (130 years) so we had to pull down the ceiling, pull up the floor, replace part of the wall and totally replaster, new plumbing, all new units and white goods, new blinds etc. It looked like a building site! So nothing is old, or so new that we've only had it since the smell started!!

It could be a dead rodent under your kitchen floor.

We had the most dreadful smell in a sitting room a few years ago. It was suggested that a rodent had died and was slowly decomposing under the floorboards.

Rather than pull up the carpet and floorboards, we elected to give the following remedy a try. We were advised to peel an onion and put the layers of onion into a bowl with water. This removes the smell - and it worked.

This happened in the height of summer so it ws not an enjoyable experience but the layers of onion in water did, after a day or two, mask the dreadful stench.

Good luck with whatever it is!

My mum’s flat took on an aroma that none of us could fathom. Smelled like urine so I began to think she might need medical help to overcome a bladder problem.
About the same time she decided to replace her vertical blinds in bedroom & sitting room with a roller blind, professionally fitted.
We then discovered it was something in her old vertical blinds that was the culprit, the fabric, the glue? It disappeared as soon as her new blinds were in place & the old verticals disposed of. Mystery solved.

NotSpaghetti - you are right indeed, thank you! They looked solid, but did come off, with difficulty, but it didn't get me anywhere as the space behind was clear - so at least I've been able to establish that! It's all so frustrating, and like I say, it's not a constant smell, sometimes I can walk in and smell it instantly, and walk back in two minutes later and there's no sign of it!! My daughter also finds the same, and we've been on our hands and knees together once or twice to try to work out where it's coming from!! If it was a gas leak, surely we'd smell gas, or maybe suffer from a headache or something?

You have my sympathy. The previous owner of our recently purchased home had a cat. The smell of cat pee in the vestibule is very strong. Despite mopping and an air freshener in situ some days its overwhelming. Also have a smell coming from kitchen sink. Put full bottle of some sort of grime buster down left for an hour then rinsed with hot water. Smell went away for ten days but its back now. Probably need trap dismantling so need a plumber or handyman to sort.

I think you will find your kick boards will come off.
Ours was refitted two years ago and we have have them off as I type after a boiler issue.
It doesn't look like they will come off but basically I have to edge one one way and then slide the other (they go round a corner). Before i do this I have to unscrew two not-very easy to spot screws that go down from the base unit into the top of the kickboard. These are covered with self-coloured covers.

I think yours will come off as they are fitted after the cupboards are fitted.

Sara1954

Lightbulbs sometimes have a really horrible fishy smell, no idea why, maybe try changing them.

Probably an old light fitting, not a lightbulb. They used to be made from bakelite, an early manmade material, which stank when it got hot.

That’s a good point, M0nica. We had a significant gas leak just up the road once. The nearby house owners had reported a bad smell that they thought was from the drains, and said it didn’t smell like gas.

Intriguing that the smell is not constant, sorry have no advice.

I had a cupboard that used to smell intermittently, kept cleaning it and the smell kept coming back. I moved everything to another cupboard, it went on for months until I realised it was tomatoes that smelt.

Thank you everyone for your help and ideas. The fridge freezer is very large and heavy and built in, so not an easy task to get to the back. I have read through the manual and there is no mention of a drip tray or anything like that, and there is certainly not one underneath. Yet the most likely things so far is either the fridge freezer or the cat! He moved out a week ago, and I've used water with vinegar to clean as that it what google advises for cat spraying. He was neutered and we've never had any evidence of him spraying, and he has never had an accident, and the area in the kitchen where the smell is strongest is near the fridge freezer and near where his food bowl and water was. Looks like we may have to pull out the freezer somehow, to check, doesn't it?

Lightbulbs sometimes have a really horrible fishy smell, no idea why, maybe try changing them.

Could it be a gas leak? In a previous house we had an odd smell that came and went and it was a split in a gas main 100 yards down the road (we were at the highest point) and some of the the gas was coming up in our cellar and into the house.

We haven't been able to find anything that looks a possibility, and we checked the air vents. Strangely, a mouse got into the house around Christmas (cat thought we'd like a present!!) and we couldn't catch it, so we put down humane mousetraps but never saw him again. This was at the other end of the house. We did wonder if it had got trapped and died somewhere but everything on google says a dead mouse would not smell for more than a week or two anyway. We're sure he found a way out as there have been no mouse droppings, no evidence of getting into food, etc., and we'd left the baited mouse traps out for a few days. We can't take off the kickboards as we had the kitchen refitted two years ago and it's all fitted i.e. there is no open space under the cupboards. I've sniffed up high and down low until I'm all sniffed out and paranoid!! It seems to be down low. Don't think we have any box plants(?) in the garden, just clematis, honeysuckle and hebe in the vicinity of the kitchen, been there years.

Is the fridge/freezer the kind which has a hole at the back of fridge for defrosted water to drain? Some of these claim that water just evaporates and nothing needs to be emptied. We had a bad smell in kitchen and couldn’t get to bottom of it till finally pulling out fridge and finding a plastic drip tray with horrible smelly water. This happened to someone else I know too.

A couple of years ago, we had a strange smell in the kitchen and it got stronger and stronger. We bought over the counter remedies but nothing worked. Called the plumber in and he took off the taps, went under the sink and dismantled pipes, and still nothing. It smelt like a dead mouse or similar. We were all flummoxed. The plumber stood with his head in his hands, looked across above the sink on the windowsill and picked up a shell that the GC had collected at the beach. There’s your culprit he said. It had some creature inside that was rotting away.. ???

When we took up old lino there was a smell like stale urine, which turned out to be the glue that held it down. It went once every scrap of the glue had been scraped up.

Do you have any box plants in the garden? Some of the cultivars smell like pee at certain times of the year... Monty never mentions that!!!

Juliet27

Can anything get into cavity walls or air vents?

I once saw a squirrel staring at me through the air vent in the kitchen.
I presume he got out again the way he got in but I never knew.

How long ago did the cat move out? Cat urine stays forever.

Have you stood up on something and sniffed the ceiling? Something might have died under the floorboards upstairs.

Can you take the kickboards off to check under the cupboards.

Dead mice smell ‘sweet’ rather than stale urine.
Good luck in your search!