Fish smell in dorm room?

mflevity
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:57:02 +0000

I had to ask. This is driving my roommate and me crazy!

We live in a brand-new dorm. When we moved in a few months ago, everything was fine. But about a week ago, our room developed a weird fishlike smell. We figured it was coming from one of our trash cans, so we took out the trash. It didn’t help.

Can anyone 1) identify a potential source of the smell, and/or 2) tell us how to get rid of it? Hopefully the collective wisdom of CC can solve the mystery!

YOUR CLUES:

1) My roommate and I are very hygienic people. We both shower daily (she actually showers twice daily; I only wish I had that kind of spare time :)). You can take my word that neither of us smells like fish.

2) It isn’t coming from our food. We both keep all of the food in our closets, which have curtains instead of doors. The spaces behind the curtains smell fine.

3) We tried opening a window and turning on the fan for a few hours. The room got about 20 degrees colder, but the smell lingered as strong as ever.

4) Since the advent of the smell, we have both done all of our laundry. No dirty clothes lying around.

5) We have also scrubbed down all of our surfaces (desks, shelves, etc.) with Lysol and swept the floors (they’re tile).

6) There are blinds (not curtains) on the windows and we only have one rug (already sniffed it).

So…what is the cause of the smell? Any ideas would be welcome. As of right now, we’re not annoyed enough to call maintenance or anything like that–which would be really embarrassing–but it’s starting to mess with my ability to study for finals in the room because it gives me a headache.