My first thought was the dead animal in the walls or attic. I've also had the unpleasant experience of having a neighbor's cat sneak into the house and go potty on my guestroom bedspread. That took awhile to discover since we hadn't seen the cat! LOL

If there are no baby diapers in the trash, no spoiled food in the fridge, and the garbage disposal has been checked, I can't think of any other ideas. Hope you find it soon, I know how horrible that can be.

Luvs

My weird kitchen smell experiences were a dead mouse in a trap I forgot that I set, and a bag of potatoes that started to go bad (rotten potatoes are really nasty and there will often be one that goes bad hidden in with all the good ones, same for onions).

Pull out the stove and fridge and see if anything accidentally got swept underneath. Also, check the drain plate under the fridge and see if anything is fermented there.

If the smell is from a small (mouse, say) dead creature inside the wall, that will pass in a few days. Unless, others join in, do you use a rodent poison?

I know the sprays only cover up, not good if the smell source is constant. I wonder if the electrical/electronic air cleaners offer any help, I am looking at one at Walmart that used a baking-soda filter. I know baking-soda can suck up a lot of odor, anyone have any experience along this line?

Same thing happened to me with the potatoes. I didn't think I had them long enough for them to go bad and I was really scratching my head. When I threw them away, the smell went too!

I had a similar unknown odor problem. While on the landing that goes to the basement or to my kitchen I smelled "something." The unused basement toilet bowl water had evaporated so gas from the waste pipe was coming up the stair well. The solution was to flush the toilet to bring water back into the toilet bowl. Would be curious to know what your problem and solution were.

Have you checked your kitchen drains? Mine get this nasty smelly goopy stuff in them and I need to clean them out periodically.

I would check the garbage disposal if you have one. The one at my office often gets really gunked up (tons of people using the drain, but no one bothers to run the dispoal) and it smells like rotten food and sour milk.

Squeeze some lemon, lime, or grapfruit juice down there (throw some of the fruit down there if you have any but leave the skin off) and run it with cool water for a good min.

Good luck!

Why would you leave the skin off fruit? Its a grinder. Even my 40 yr old blender can do orange rinds. Seems skin would be all the better--more substance. Sandy

I also had an unknown odor. It was centrally located at the garage door that went into my kitchen. I knew it was something that had died and I knew it had to be small, but I didn't see anything.

It was a lizard under the doormat.

Tomatoes and potatoes both give off a bad dead-animal smell when they rot. Check any fresh food and cans of these two.

Well folks, I found the problem! I checked all the areas everyone recommended, and found nothing. My newer frig doesn't have a drain that I could find, (isn't that strange?) Then I reached under the sink for something and discovered that I had a slow leak in the pipe at the connection to the garbage disposal. I don't know how long this has been going on because I don't store anything under there that I use regularly. So I had it repaired, cleaned the area with bleach and the odor is completely gone! Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful ideas!