Fish Smell in House

I need some help here. About a week ago we noticed a fish smell at the bottom of the stairs and in one of the upstairs bedroom. Smell was gone in the morning only to return the following evening. The pattern continues. No smell during the day and arrives in the evening some days stronger than others. Seems to move from one room to another but fairly consistent the last two days. The attic does not smell. I have visually inspected the attic and had the vents and ducts cleaned in the upstairs unit. I cannot say it is a dead animal smell but rather the strong odor of fish. It makes absolutely no sense to me. HELP???

 

Wet/sour insulation smells like fish to me.

 

that would have made sense as we had a bathroom leak a few weeks ago. I took your hint and ran to that area......no smell. Completely accross to the other side of the house though it is in that bathroom pretty strong...and during the day now. Put clorox down all the sink drains after cleaning them. Clorox down the tub drains. I usually prefer to go fishing with a rod and reel.

 

did u ever find out what the problem was?? i have the same exact problem and also can not find the root cause.. Last night the odor was bad, this morning no odor at all..

 

well the source has been determined. I had an outdoor receptacle that was on the same circuit as my upstairs bathrooms. The Christmas lights were on that outdoor plugs. The Christmas lights went out last night and I could not determine the problem. The indoor plugs still had full power while the outdoor plug was probably only pulling 20-30 watts meaning it was grounding out somewhere. Changed the plug...not the problem meaning it was the wiring....I think. The breaker is off now. Went in and smelled the outlets and BINGO, there is where the smell originates and explains the moving from room to room. Not sure why the receptacles when overheated smell like fish, but I think I have a wiring problem now that needs to be resolved. Major success so far and I feel better about it now that the breaker is off. Will get it fixed next week.

 

atfer i saw your message, i started checking the outlets when the smell came back. sure enough one receptacle was very hot to the touch and was causing the fish odor. it was not bad wiring, but possibly a loose "hot" wire or a bad receptacle. i replaced today and hopefully the fish is dead!!!
thanks for the info....

 

I have never heard of that before.
One more thing to add to the memory banks

 

When insulation gets hot, it tends to smell like fish. We have had posts in the past where can lights caused insulation to smell like fish.

 

So the insulation thing and the electrical short can coincide.

I wasn't totally wrong, cool