An enzymatic cleaner may help if the vinegar doesn’t work. Biokleen makes one and so does Nature’s Miracle. Good luck! It’s terrible to live with bad odors. Hope your new cabinets don’t smell from having your old things put away.

No, the new cabinets/kitchen don't smell. I just don't know what is causing it to linger in the closet.

Do you have a crawl space under your house? Is there a skunk living under it?

Do you heat with propane? They add an odor to the tank that smells “skunky” so you will know if you have a leak. Sometimes you can smell it when your tank gets super low as well....

Yes, propane smells like skunk.

No propane. But we do have oil heat. No crawl space either. The smell is only in the hall closet. I can't hang our coats in there because they start smelling. At first I thought the previous homeowners were pot smokers but I have not found their "stash"

Are you sure the closet didn't have its own smell before you stuck the kitchen stuff in there? It might have intensified during the remodel when it was kept closed without any air circulation.

I had a house where some of the kitchen cabinets and linen closets smelled. Not quite skunky, but baaaaad. It was just something used in the old plywood I guess.

If you don't have any nice woodwork to save in the closet, you could try blocking the smell by covering everything with a good sealer, like shellac or Kilz? Bin? (ask the paint store).

Did the former owners smoke marijuana? Since it was legalized here in California for recreational use, everywhere smells as if a skunk is spraying.

fillmoe, I was going to suggest that because my partner has a condo and when we walk in the stairway up to his unit that's all you could smell. The smell is in the carpet now. The former tenants in the downstairs unity must have been big pot smokers......ugh! I hate the smell!

I thought maybe the previous owners might have stored pot in the kitchen but we didn't find anything when we removed the cabinets. I didn't notice the smell in the closet until we put the kitchen stuff in there. Now the stuff has been removed but the closet still smells. I have changed the flooring and painted the walls in the closet,the smell is still there. I'm just not sure where the smell is coming from and how to remove it.

Any chance you’ve got a bathroom on the other side of the closet wall with water penetrating the wall? Either way, your next step might just be to bite the bullet and punch some holes in the drywall to find out what’s behind the wall: an attic dwelling raccoon that fell down between the walls and died; a contractor’s lunch leftovers, etc.

There is a powder room on the other side of the closet. The room was renovated but wasn't taken down to the studs. There was no visible water damage when the toilet\vanity was removed. I guess if the smell continues to persist I will have to some holes in the closet.

Hmm, I'm wondering if your sewer stack is venting improperly into the wall cavity between the powder room and closet?

We have an EXTREMELY similar problem in the attic of the old house we recently bought. Two of the closets smell all the time - not skunky as much as rotten in our case. We suspect that the sewer stack is venting sewer gas into the attic crawl space instead of all the way outside. The smell was not pesent when we toured the house (it was unoccupied). It came about once we moved in. I initially thought I'd accidentally packed a lime or something in a box I put in that room and that it was rotting, but eventually the rotting stops, and the smell has not stopped. We are close to poking some holes into the closet walls to see what's going on.

I cannot believe I've found others who think pot smells like a dead skunk! And your closet, party_music!

I manage a restaurant and have even had to ask guests to go put on body spray because they're (stinking up my restaurant) disturbing the other guests. Awkward, but somehow I've been able to do it without sending high, pot-addled ghetto rats into an indignant, corporate calling frenzy. I guess it's the offer of treating them to dinner if they just (didn't smell like a dead skunk) wouldn't mind being so kind.

I tell my kids (entry level restaurant, so few grown-ups) that they need to put on body spray before I figure out which one of them smells like road kill and send them home. They giggle like the juveniles they are.

I have such an issue with this, simply because of the SMELL! I can't have impaired people at work, any more than I could have drunks working. There's no standards for that yet, so it's difficult to address. I did let a guy fill out an application so as not to discriminate, but had to open the restaurant doors near where he was sitting to air out the stench. Not getting THAT job.

One night, driving home to my house in the country, I was furious that some of the kids must have gotten into my truck and smoked pot. FURIOUS! Then I got out and realized someone had actually hit a skunk nearby. Or a skunk sprayed something.

Ok tangent over. I am SO sorry you're dealing with such an awful smell. A refrigeration guy told me how to get that awful, closed-up refrigerator stink out so maybe it'll help in your closet? Wad up newspapers and fill the fridge, close it and leave it for a week. It worked. Just a real reach of an idea for you.

How often is the powder room used? Our guest bath has minimal use so I occasionally run water in the tub. If it dries out it smells.