Strong, acrid, musty smell after wind/rain. What could it be?

Hi, I need your help. I own a brick, single-fronted "Victorian" house built around 1900. About a month ago my wife adn I noticed a very strong, acrid, musty smell in one of our rooms - slightly noxious to the eyes - which seemed to appear several days after a day of wind and rain. Initially we thought that this might be from mold, but we searched the room throughly and couldn't find any signs of mold or moisture at all. After several days the smell disappeared.

Fast forward to the next windy/rainy day, and the same thing happened again, but even stronger. Now it's happened several times, and not only has the room become basically uninhabitable but the smell spreads to be noticable in other areas of our small house, though it's clearly coming from that one room. Yesterday we returned to the house after a holiday and the house was full of the smell, with it again eminating from the one room.

One guess is that it might be coming from an old fireplace that has been sealed over by previous owners. Presumably the fireplace still exists behind the plastering, and if so it seems possible that something has gotten into it - perhaps water or debris - and the smell is escaping through cracks along the skirting. The house does still have a chimney, which would presumably lead down to the sealed up fireplace. We haven't been able to inspect it, as we haven't got the right ladder or safety equipment, but someone suggested that the wind/rain might have blown off whatever protects from wind, rain, debris, animals, etc, from coming into it. Either way, the smell is getting worse and worse, and we need to find a solution because the room is uninhabitable.

So, who should we call to help identify and remedy the situtuation? A chimney specialist? A mold detector and removalist? Someone else? Where do we start?

Thanks in advance for your help. We're getting a bit desperate.

TLDR - We've got a strong, acrid, musty smell that appears in a room after rain and is getting worse. Is it from mold, something in the chimney/fireplace, or what? And who do we call to diagnose the problem and fix it?

 

It might be a dead rat / possum / bird or similar that has died in the fireplace or walls. We had a similar smell in a property a few years ago and it was a dead rat in the ceiling/wall cavity that was slowly decomposing.......

 

No floor covering. It's just polished wood.

 

Unfortunately not easily. I think we'd have to cut a whole in the floor-boards.

 

We considered that, but I'm fairly confident that's not the case. I grew up in an old house in the USA and we often had rats / mice freezing in the walls during the winter and rotting. That's a very distinctive smell. Still, you might be right.

 

Maybe just take a walk outside and see if vent-chimney capping is still in place or never was capped off if it's still sealed then it will not be the vent from the fireplace ..

Plus as I don't want to give you extra worry but,sometimes when you have old electrical wiring can also give off the acid plastic smell I would be looking at the electrical side of things as animals snakes give off a certain smell and so does electrical ..imho..

 

Good suggestion. Any recommendations in the Melbourne area?

 

Good idea. What should I be looking for? This is the first time I've ever owned a house (lived and worked overseas for 12 years, always living in provided accommodation), so I'm a bit clueless.

 

Maybe ring up a local lic electrician and run a check over the building,or ring up your insurance and see if they can help..imho..

 

If you ring up a building inspector, see if they have a moisture meter (pest inspectors usually have these) and that can often indicate if there is built up moisture where there shouldn't be. Some pest inspectors also have infra-red (could that pick up a dead animal?!).

 

There is a guy who often posts on the Homeone forum who is a building inspector who seems to have a good reputation.

He seems to do new builds though and might be too high powered and pricey for what you need...

You could just google 'building inspections' and your location. When you call them, be specific about the problem (and email them to follow up too).

Even an experienced handy person might help.