Your first checks should always be your garbage can, dirty laundry, and your garbage disposal. It can be as simple as you didn’t take the trash out and that left over tuna smell is deadly. There could be towels and clothes that need to be washed ASAP. Or you didn’t run your garbage disposal and the food has just been sitting on top of it.
All of those are simple and quick fixes, but what about when you’ve checked all those places and none of them are the culprit of that nose scrunching smell? First things first, determine the type of smell you’re smelling - then you can take the necessary steps to get rid of it.
If you’re smelling rotten eggs, it’s usually one of three things: electrical problem, hot water pipe issue, or a gas leak. To see if the problem is electrical, move towards your outlets and see if the smell is stronger. If it does get stronger, then turn off your circuit breaker and call maintenance. When plastic components behind your outlet start to smell like rotten eggs it’s because something has burned, if not taken care of it can cause a home fire.
Don’t smell anything near your outlets? Turn your hot water on and see if the smell gets stronger. If it does, the smell is most likely coming from an old anode rod that needs to be replaced. Call maintenance and request they come out with a new anode rod. Your anode rod should be replaced a minimum of every 5 years in order to prolong the use of your hot water heater.
When the smell isn’t near any of your outlets or in your hot water, it can be a gas leak, in which case you need to call your gas company immediately. All natural gas manufactures are required to add a chemical called mercaptan in order to detect if there is a leak. Without the chemical you would never smell, see, or taste a gas leak.
Walking into your home and smelling sewage is never fun, good thing it’s a simple fix.
Within your sink pipes there is this thing called a P-trap, which is a little curved section of piping that helps create a seal from the sewer gas that lurks behind it. If you’re smelling sewage it may be because your P-trap has dried out. To create the necessary blockage, the curved P section needs to be filled with water. If you have sinks that haven’t been run even once in the last month, then the water that was in the P section has evaporated and thus dried out. Make sure you run water through all your sinks at least once a month to refresh the water within the P-trap.
It’s only fishy if you have a fish within your fridge or freezer that has gone bad. Otherwise, it’s more than likely an overheating electrical component. Everyone’s nose is different, and some people will attach an overheating electrical component (burning plastic, wiring, etc.) to that of a fishy smell and others will attach it to that of a rotten egg smell. Again, investigate your outlets and call your maintenance team!
Are the above suggestions not the ones your smelling? Check here to see if your smell is on this list.