Lamp Fixtures Cause Bad Odor
Some time after Jocie and I moved into our house, we started to notice a bad odor in the unfinished part of our basement. The smell is difficult to describe, but it reminded me of bad fish. If you look around online, it’s obvious that a lot of people are frustrated by house smells. This post will show you an easy place to check (and hopefully how to resolve the odor).
House Odors
A lot of people have odors and bad smells in their house. Here are some of the more popular causes that I explored.
- Pet odors
- Retained cooking odors
- Mildew from rain or leak
- Dead animal
I spent some serious time examining the dryer vent ductwork. We have a vent cover but it’s not uncommon for animals to find their way inside. Even if your dryer vent is up off the ground, make sure it has some kind of cover.
Finally, I had a breakthrough! Fred had the same nasty odor in his basement, so we turned to our good friend Google.
We discovered that some old lamp fixtures feature a plastic collar at the base of the fixture. This collar heats up from the bulb and gives off a bad fishy odor. Both Fred and I had these lamps in our basement. This also explains why the smell was intermittent and infrequent: the collar needed to heat up before it began to smell. We both removed these rings from the lamps and have been odor free ever since.
This same odor can occur when receptacles short out or switches melt nearby plastic. If you have a strange smell, be sure to check your light fixtures and outlets.
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November 20th, 2009 3:55 pm
I have cats and a 3 year old, so our house is a menagerie of strange odors. However, one worth mentioning is the dishwasher. My mother-in-law managed to spill gunk from a dish onto the dishwasher door while loading it (bear in mind that this is the same woman who greased my new laminate kitchen floor up making “home fries” on the stove without a freaking lid. I learned that I can do a cheerleading split all the way to the floor.) I noticed a horrifying rot smell coming from the kitchen soon afterwards–how nobody else noticed it was odd, because I’m the smoker, and it filled the entire house.
It correlated with the dishwasher being used. After tearing the dishwasher door apart, I found nasty, slimy gunk lining the channel in the door that vents the steam out. So every time it dried the dishes, the hot steam was creating a “**** potpourri” effect. Cleaning it out solved the issue, but I had to cut out some of the fiberglass insulation as well, as it had leaked down the inside of the door.
Moral of the story: Take a second and dump your nasty food residue in the sink before loading dishes in the dishwasher.
Additional Moral: Keep your mother-in-law out of your kitchen, or preferably, your house.