Mildew smell

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I've got a mildew smell coming from the laundry room/master bedroom/master bathroom area.

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Check and sniff the area around the shower for possible leaks in the grout that could allow mildew to grow behind.

We had that happen years ago, and didn't determine the cause of the smell until there was damage to the structure underneath.

I would recommend buying a pinless moisture meter. We had mildew smells in the house we recently bought.

I bought a Klein Tools ET140 Pinless Moisture Meter on Amazon. It checks for moisture in sheetrock, wood and masonry. I found moisture behind the walls in our basement in 3 areas by simply running this simple device up and down the walls. I couldn't see the moisture except for one spot where the basement cinder block wall was exposed. The device easily found all of the moisture spots. What I quickly discovered was that these three locations all had gutter downspouts on the outside wall that went into underground 4" drain pipes that were clogged.

I also bought a water jetter hose and connected those to my pressure washer and unclogged the drain pipes. Now I can see that moisture is not coming in the cinder block location. I'm not sure if I am going to rip out the sheet rock in the other locations yet or not. I have dehumidifiers running now and an air purifier, plus a jar of damp rid and several fragrance wax melts.

Running the HVAC fans in the main floor and basement also helped. Doing everything I mentioned above has pretty much eliminated the smell. I am still monitoring the moisture. It's still in the walls but is very slowly improving. I might rip out the sheetrock. Other things I might have to do is to install a French Drain on two walls and possibly repaint the dry lock type sealant and even hydraulic cement if I ever see any water coming through any seams between the slab and walls. I could also get some clay to add a little more slope away from the house on the two outside walls where the slope is virtually flat.

I think my issues all stemmed from the clogged gutter drain pipes and it is just going to take time to dry out.

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I basically sloped new dirt and packed it up against the entire foundation around my house. Over time I had a couple spots behind shrubbery on a slope where water did not run off quickly. Sloping the packed dirt fixed my issues.

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I think I should probably do that as well on two sides of our house. I was thinking that red clay would be best. I'm not sure if just fill dirt would be better. Clay would probably be better for water running off of it, but also probably worse for letting wet soil dry out below it. What kind of dirt did you use?

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Here in Alabama I use a mixture of 30% clay and 70% top soil. I get it from a landscaping place that sells rock, pebbles, sand, dirt, and mulch. The manager there suggested the mixture for ease of shoveling and packing.

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Thanks. We live in Alabama as well. We have a couple of those landscaping places nearby that I can go check out.