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That smell is the smell of a deal. I remember walking into a place that the even the agent refused to step into. She said, "I'm not going to go in there, I feel like taking a shower just standing here."
That's all it took to pick it up on the cheap and take it from the worst condo in the building to the best. My rehab sparked a renovation boom in the building. The neighbors were thrilled.
I saw a few foreclosed properties while househunting and I did not notice any methane-y odors, maybe the houses had not been vacant for long enough for those to accumulate.
The ones I did see had that musty gym locker odor, but one had a spectacular smell. Every single room reeked of cigarette smoke. According to zillow the listing had been up for five months at that time and the place still reeked. The walls and ceilings were stained in some rooms from the smoke but there was not a single room in that house where you could get away from the smell. I am not sure painting and recarpeting would get rid of it. That foreclosure is still on the market 2 months later, has dropped its price another $10,000, and will probably stay on the market for a while longer. Right now it is about $58-$59 per square foot in a neighborhood where houses sell for $110-$140 per square foot. I almost feel sorry for the house itself, so abused and mistreated.
I thought about making an offer myself but the house had a few dealbreakers. It had a pool in an unknown condition that I would want to have torn out. It was built on a slab and had an obvious foundation problem, one that I do not have the cash to fix if I am also going to do major work on the interior. And being built in 1967, it almost certainly has aluminum wiring like most other houses in that neighborhood. I think that house has "investor special" written all over it.
But it STANK. Oh god did it stink. It was the stinkiest house I have ever seen.
Don't worry... I'm sure it's just the Chinese sheetrock!
Mystery smells can be very disconcerting when it comes to looking at houses... but never underestimate the tenacious stink of teenage feet. Odds are new carpet and pad and paint will make a big difference.
Don't worry... I'm sure it's just the Chinese sheetrock!
Mystery smells can be very disconcerting when it comes to looking at houses... but never underestimate the tenacious stink of teenage feet. Odds are new carpet and pad and paint will make a big difference.
Hopefully someone else will see its potential. It could be a great house but it needed too much work for my budget/abilities.
90% of the odor is actually methane gas coming from plumbing. This is due to evaporation of the normal water block that the drain traps (where the drain line makes a "U" right below the sink, etc.) hold. Simply running some water will refill the trap and stop the methane gas from entering the home.
BTW, this occurs in any home left vacant for a period of time. Does not need to be a foreclosure.
BTDT many times.
This would apply to just bathroom area smells though, right? This smell is coming from a room that is pretty far away from a bathroom and the bathrooms don't smell bad.
When we were house hunting for a rental property a few months back, we came across this place where you could smell the joint from the drive way!
Every room of the house had the worst smells, but it was a very nice, spacious house, right on the 9th hole of a very prestigious golf course! We did an inspection and come to find out there were dead animals everywhere! Dead birds in the chimney, dead squirells in the attic, 2 dead cat stuffed under a bathroom sink, skeletal remains of a "canine" (could have been a dog, wolf or hyenna?) not to mention some other "hidden" issues (roof, furnace, etc)
Turns out the woman was a pet hoarder and when she died, they tried their best to get out the dead and living animals that they could see, but I guess the cats were hidden, or ran in their, or had already been dead, who knows? And as far as the canine bones, that one is still a mystery!
Unfortunatley the seller (her greedy son in law and clueless daughter) was very delusional as far as ammending the price, so we walked, and to this day the family has had trouble getting someone to stay at the place. He tried it as a corporate rental (he stole my idea BTW), yet got cheap when it came to the remodeling, and here this place sits now, vacant and back on the market, and still overpriced *sigh*
When we were house hunting for a rental property a few months back, we came across this place where you could smell the joint from the drive way!
Every room of the house had the worst smells, but it was a very nice, spacious house, right on the 9th hole of a very prestigious golf course! We did an inspection and come to find out there were dead animals everywhere! Dead birds in the chimney, dead squirells in the attic, 2 dead cat stuffed under a bathroom sink, skeletal remains of a "canine" (could have been a dog, wolf or hyenna?) not to mention some other "hidden" issues (roof, furnace, etc)
Turns out the woman was a pet hoarder and when she died, they tried their best to get out the dead and living animals that they could see, but I guess the cats were hidden, or ran in their, or had already been dead, who knows? And as far as the canine bones, that one is still a mystery!
Unfortunatley the seller (her greedy son in law and clueless daughter) was very delusional as far as ammending the price, so we walked, and to this day the family has had trouble getting someone to stay at the place. He tried it as a corporate rental (he stole my idea BTW), yet got cheap when it came to the remodeling, and here this place sits now, vacant and back on the market, and still overpriced *sigh*
Eew! Dead animals! For that matter, they say that if people have died in the house it is bad Feng Shui due to ghosts that may still be there. I wonder how one can research that?
With all the homes on the market today, including foreclosures, why in the world would you want to purchase one that smells like dirty socks or dirty anything else? Just move on to the next one.
Has anyone ever looked at a house with a carpeted room with a TERRIBLE dirty sock smell (as if the room was 3/4 filled with dirty socks that you ended up buying and successfully got rid of the smell afterwards????
I've seen some gross houses with moldy mildewy musky odors and seen some wth really invasive black mold growing on some of them. However, I'm wondering about one that doesn't appear to have mold issues but has an even MORE overpowering DISGUSTING dirty sock or locker room SMELL in one of the bedrooms-- that is far worse than any mold smell.
Do you think by removing the carpet it would be possible to get rid of the smell? Is there a possibility the smell can't be eliminated?
?
Pulling the carpet and pad could help. HOwever, the smell might have got into the subfloor (the plywood) and you might have to replace that. If it is concrete, maybe you could clean it real good.
My house was a foreclosure and didn't smell good-it was winter and unheated when I got it, and I can only imagine what it would have smelled like this time of year! But, all new carpet, refinished hardwood floors (they were pet urine soaked) and paint cured all our smells.
The house we bought had been a rental, and the renter bred small, frequently incontinent dogs. In order to get the house saleable, the owners had to tear out 100% of the carpet and pad and scrub the concrete slab with a heavy bleach solution.
If the sellers hadn't mentioned the reason for the brand new carpet, the humans in the house would never have known. (Though the cat did spend the first few weeks walking around the house like he smelled something unpleasant all the time)
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