Deathly Smell is Slowly Killing Me: Please Help!

Janneke

I live in an old building and downstairs is a restaurant. Not a very nice restaurant and really disgusting smells fill our living room every evening. It doesn't smell of food, it smells dirty (perhaps they don't have their extractors working, I don't know). It's so bad that we can't use the room most of the time.

The landlord can't believe we have a problem because the tenants before us didn't complain. They were chain smokers, so I guess that's why.

There's a gap between the skirting boards and the floor in that room, and we're wondering if that's where the stink is coming through. What would be the best way to seal it off? My boyfriend thinks that if we properly re-polish/wax the floorboards, it might also seal off the smell a bit. Any thoughts?

Mr Guinness.

Sounds like a dead rat in the cavity wall.

Janneke

I don't think so, cos when we went downstairs to the restaurant, it's the same smell. But somehow it becomes worse and stronger by the time it goes through the ceiling...

We've been living here since the end of January and it's been pretty consistent every day the restaurant is open. Surely the rat would've decomposed by now if it was a rat?

slimjimmc

Doubt there's much you can do to seal out smells without structural work, all you can do is try and mask it (which might be a clue to how the previous tenants started chain smoking). I'd start visiting estate agents again for somewhere else, no point in paying for a place you can't enjoy.

moceri

It could be grease traps. Ask the Restaurant owner to flush them out and see if that has any improvement. Rancid grease will smell to high heavens especially during the summer. If this does not resolve the problem or the owner is being unsympathetic you could contact the Environmental Health Officer who could pay a visit to the Restaurant to ensure best practices in terms of cleaning are being observed. A restaurant, regardless of the age of building should not have a lingering putrid odour. Rodenticides are designed to make furry pests thirsty and they will seek out water to drink and usually die outdoors rather than in a wall cavity.

stimpson

Why don't you move?

bozd

well did you move? or was the problem solved. our dormer - 8 years in developed a terrible stink which got so bad that lifting the floor etc and searching for dead rats or whatever showed up with nothing. what I was told was possible was toilet gas from a soil pipe that was too low - so I raised it above the level of the gutter and that solved it. another explanation could be seals on toilet waste pipe joints also leaking the stink.