I realize this is my second post in two days about smells, but it is totally unrelated, I swear.
I am in the UK, but I have been trying to explain this smell to my wife for days…
The bathroom in the place we are renting short-term has a really weird smell in it. It’s not a good smell, but it’s not a smell that makes me want to run out and never go back in. I would describe it as ‘sort of unpleasant.’ Like absolutely tolerable, but I wouldn’t want to hang around.
It doesn’t smell biological. It doesn’t smell like human or animal or mold. It doesn’t smell like some sort of cleaning or construction chemical either.
The closest I have come to be able to describe it is like the stale breath of a smoker, except without the burnt things part. Like everything else in old cigarette smell but that. Except that’s not really right either.
This place used to contain (I think) a printing press and then was turned into apartments, so maybe it’s something left over from that? I don’t know, but I wish I could explain it!
Could the smelly smell that smells smelly be a bathroom exhaust fan that needs to be cleaned or possibly replaced?
Possibly. I honestly would not know how to tell.
You would have to get at the bathroom fan and see if it is dirty and smell it up close.
I don’t know how they make them there, but the American ones can be a bit of a bother because they are often made with sharp stamped steel with tabs and slots to hold the fan in.
I think the people we’re renting this from would not want us to do that, but I’d just like an answer.
Fuck around and find out. I bet they would appreciate the place not burning down because the bathroom fan was primed for failure due to lack of maintenance.
The right way to go about it would be to call them and tell them about the smell concern and suspicion that the fan may be at fault. Then they can spend the quid on a tradie coming out for a half hour.