Wet carpets smell?

[deena]

We flooded the basement and even though we sucked up the excess water it still smelled really bad. Like a swamp. So we threw out the carpet. I just figured that that is just what happens when you flood a basement.

But then I decided we needed to clean the 5'5' square of carpet we have in the living room (like a throw rug, but it's carpet). It was smelling in one corner. So we took it outside and hosed it down and scrubbed it with Resolve carpet cleaner, within hours though, as it started to dry, it smelled really bad! Like wet dog. The previous house owners (carpet owner) had a dog.

I'm thinking the water somehow released the odor that was already there. Does it work that way? If you took a brand new carpet and got it wet would it smell really bad when it dried?

[ECingMama]

It's not been my experience that new carpets smell bad when wet. Our new ish carpet didn't smell in our old house until we had it steam cleaned. AFTER it was done, the guy told me to make sure to treat spots before the steam cleaning! Doh! We walked around with a black light and found the few spots of toddler misses that were causing the stink. Sigh.