Thank you for your response. The AC guy thought he was smelling creosote and ask where my furnace was, which I don't have. I have an air handler up in the attic. I had all the ductwork cleaned last week. Not much was in there. When I first smelled this odor back in April when I bought the house, it smelled like "a swimming pool" to me. Above this tar waterproofing on the outside of the house (because this is in the basement below the stairs) is a 1987 central air conditioner that still runs. I suspected they had water leaking from that unit at some point..because the copper pipes go into the closet and because when I removed the mulch from around the air conditioning unit outside THE MULCH SMELLED OF THE ODOR THAT I AM DETECTING. 3 Air conditioning repairmen later, and they all said the unit is not leaking and is running fine with no cost out of my pocket except for the service call. The windows are open every day and the bulkhead doors too. I am guessing it will not dissipate. I can smell it in my clothing if I leave my laundry to hang there near the washer. I would like to paint over this dry-feeling tar with something like a KILZ ODOR BLOCKER, but I am not sure which one I should use. Sadly, if I cannot overcome this I will literally have to sell the house. I have also removed the drop ceiling tiles in that area and the insulation- that ALL smelled of this odor. I will just have to cover it up, I guess. Any ideas what I can use? The Baxter Group out of Chambersburg, PA said they could sand the tar off the wall in January. Not sure I want to remove the waterproofing tar material, though, without a back up plan. And after all this, WHAT IF it is not even the tar being the culprit sickening odor? LOL OMG. Thank you for your information! Stay safe, Sir.

I thank you all for your advice and suggestions. MongoCT..I will definitely try the charcoal and baking soda. Roarah, I appreciate your suggestion from last week about the heat and additional comment this time regarding the charcoal. Mayflowers..tip about newspapers is an easy one to accomplish...will give it a try, too. Mdln, I forget to mention in my question that, most unfortunately, there is not a window in our master bath. And, that is very problematic. I do appreciate your taking time to reply. That fan is awesome! Many thanks for your suggestions. I have added pics to show cabinets and the very closed in space.

Reading this post after our custom kitchen cabinets were painted with an oil laquer paint and smell/fumes are bad. Spent a week away to try and let the paint smell lesson, and while it has, it’s definitely not what I would consider livable at this point. It’s summer here and 90 plus degrees, even so we have windows open and fans going to help the fumes leave. I wish my GC would have given me another option for cabinet paint, I was only asked what color. Never even knew how horrible this would smell. Considering getting a Dyson air purifier w formaldehyde carbon filter which costs $700. Ugh.

A SHARP scraper works well, & totally non-toxic! Next: Using a palm-sander or sanding-block, EVENLY dull the surface some until you're happy with the smoothness. * Get every molecule of dust off. * Use a good primer! 2 coats if you're fussy. This will allow you to SLIGHTLY smooth the surface a tad, with a 220-grit sponge. * Now, 2 coats of a good Cabinet & Trim paint. Satin is fine....Semi-gloss a little better. * You could use a "normal" wall paint, but you then have literally have 60 seconds of working-time before it starts tacking-up! Faron