House-Related Mystery For Contractors / Experienced Handy People
I have been having a strange house-related problem for a few months, and was hoping the DU collective might have some useful opinions/info about it. I am trying to prep my house to be put up for sale in a few months, and I have this unresolved issue that could put potential buyers off, and I need some help.
I live in a 1925 carriage house, where the main living floor is on the 2nd story, and the bottom floor is a large open garage space. The house itself is made of brick, with a stucco exterior and approximately 1/2 inch of horsehair plaster covering the interior walls. There is no hollow space inside the walls, and no wooden studs (as far as I can tell - never found one while opening any walls). I have hardwood floors, and there is a ~6" open space between the wood floor and the ceiling/joists of the garage below.
About 4-6 months ago, I started noticing an odd smell in my office. This is a room that has two exterior-facing walls (it's at a corner of the house), but no plumbing, no chimneys. It is a sort of waxy, human kind of odor, that smells very much like BO, almost like sweat. It does NOT smell either like mildew/mold or like a rotting dead animal in any way whatsoever. It smells just like a sweaty guy who needed to take a shower a couple of days ago and put on some deodorant. At first I thought it was just that the room needed to be cleaned and the closet cleared out and aired out, etc. So, I thought, hey, I need to clean and paint and stage everything for sale anyway, so why not just take the opportunity to re-do the whole room. So that's what I did - I took all the furniture out, cleaned out the entire closet, replaced the rug, steam-mopped the floors, repainted a bunch of stuff, etc, etc. It was a VERY thorough cleaning.
Unfortunately, the smell has only increased since then. It has become so strong in the last two weeks that it is starting to permeate the hallway. It still does not smell like mildew or a dead animal, only like strong BO.
I smelled all around the room, including the walls and floors to see if I could track it down by scent. It is pretty clear to me that it is coming from somewhere around the bottom 2 feet of the wall at the corner of the two exterior walls. It smelled most strongly to me at a wall right under a window frame, where we happen to have installed a window planter box (outside) using lag bolts into the brick. We did caulk all the bolts and boxes, but I thought maybe there was moisture getting in behind the box somehow and causing mold in the wall (my worst case scenario). So today my husband and I drilled about 5 different large holes directly into the interior wall where the smell is strongest, right behind where the window box is installed. I fully expected to find some kind of a hollow space with mildew back there. Instead, it is ALL completely solid brick from the window frame down. There was no trace of moisture whatsoever, the brick dust we pulled out has no smell at all and no wetness, there is no hollow space for mold to form, the horsehair plaster has no trace of mold or wetness, etc. We also drilled down into the window frame itself, where we hit brick, no moisture, no smell, etc. So it's pretty clear this smell is not due to something inside the wall, even though it's strongest at the wall.
We looked all around the exterior of the house for spaces where rodents could have come in, but there are no rodent holes to be seen. It does not smell on the exterior of the house. We took the planter box dirt out of the planters, and it did not seem to have any mold or odor, and the boxes themselves also seem fine in every way. We looked in the garage below for any places where wetness or rodents could be entering the floor - no holes, no signs of moisture, no nothing. There is no smell at all in the garage, despite it being less than 2 feet down from the smelly part of the room. There is no chimney or anything else in that room that could be letting animals or wetness in some other way.
So now I am at a complete loss. I have a extremely smelly wall that seems to have no obvious source of smell. My husband thinks maybe a squirrel or rat somehow crawled into the floor space and died, but it does not smell like dead animal at all to me. It smells like sweaty unwashed dude. And I can't figure out how it could have gotten in, or why the completely solid brick wall is the part that smells (the floor does not stink).
The only thing I can think of left to do is to take up the hardwood floor. This is an unbelievable nuisance and will wreck the original 1925 narrow oak floor strips, so I REALLY do not want to do that, especially since I am not convinced the floor is the source of the smells.
Is it possible that a dead animal could be making a BO smell instead of a dead animal smell? It has never smelled like something dead in there, not even in the beginning.
And if so, how long can I expect this to go on? It's been smelling like this for at least 4-6 months already, and it's just getting stronger.
I tried an air freshener, but the stench is so strong now that it's kind of overpowering the air freshener. If I were a buyer, I would not want to buy a house that smells like an unwashed armpit. I am especially aggravated about this because I'm kind of an anti-hoarder clean freak by nature, and I am embarrassed by having a stinky house that I can't do anything about. 
Please help!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Looks over at you.
Stares back at the spot on the wall. Low woof.
Looks back at you like you're supposed to know.
Stares back at the spot.
Paces the room once and parks their butt back in front of the spot.
Stares at spot and cocks their head to one side like they are listening to a conversation.
Go over to the dog and stare at the same spot.
Wife walks into the room, asks what is that smell?
You look at dog, dog looks at you, both look at the spot on the wall.
Wife, dog and you look at spot.
Something smells...funky...
Like that kind a odor?
Unfortunately, this is an old thread and the original poster who started it hasn't been active here in months.
It's unlikely that you will get an answer, although you might.
You might try posting in the DIY & Home Improvement Group:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1158
You'll need to get to 10 posts before you can start your own thread.
Good luck, and Welcome!
The discussion you're replying to is from 2013 and it doesn't look like the member who posted this has been around for awhile. You might try the Home Improvement Group here. DU has groups for pretty much any interest, so look around! We're glad to have you with us!
DIY & Home Improvement (Group)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1158