Need help with smell in dining room

Hello all, I am hoping someone can help me with this. Ok, for about a month now we have been noticing a very strong, offensive odor coming from around the area of our dining room. We do have pets and of course blamed them altho we had no other reason to believe it was caused by pets, nor did it smell like any "pet" smell I've known. I can best describe it as a mix of stagnant water....mop water that's a week old?....maybe a little ammonia like? It is actually irritating to my nose much like bleach when we walk into the room. It was not until today that I finally was able to single out the only ouside wall in the dining room where coincidentally we have had water leak from underneath during 3 heavy rainstorms as the source of the smell. I even noticed that part of the paneling on that wall seems to be warped and damaged from getting wet. Outside this wall is our patio and a boxed or bricked in flower bed that runs the legnth of the wall. The entire home is brick. I can only assume that in torrential downpours a bit of water is leaking from the flower bed to underneath the wall? I guess my quetions are....could this be mold I am smelling? Or just rotten, wet, nasty materials? Does this smell ring a bell with anyone? It doesn't have what I typically think of as a mold smell which kinda smells like dirt....this is very strong...irritating...Thanks all, I hope I can figure this out.
Erin

More than likely, if this has been going on for a while, you have a mold issue.
You can break a piece of wall off, just as any professional that comes out will do. Then you will know what is behind the wallboard.

Just remember to open a window for fresh air when you do this..it can get overwhelming.
If it is a really bad issue, call your insurance company, they may take care of it.

Don't pay $$ to have someone come sample the air, unless you find nothing behind the wallboard.
And make sure you fix the water problem , or it will come right back.

Is it on a slab or is there a crawl space? If there's a crawl space has anyone gone under the house to check for standing water?
I'd like to see a picture of the outside of the house near where you say you had water damage. It's never a good idea to have a bricked in flower bed up againt the side of a house. All you have done is create a pond for water to build up.

Thank you both for your replies. This home is indeed on a slab so no crawl space, it was built in 76....the whole flower bed idea seems stupid to me as well and we'd considered taking them out as they run the legnth of two different walls of the home. Also, now I'm really gonna sound stupid, but the more I think about it, I think the water couldn't be coming from the flower bed as it would be dirty water I'd think. I hadn't really thought about it but now that I do the water is very clear and clean....not black like i'd expect if it had run thru 2 feet of potting soil before coming in? I wonder instead if this could be a gutter issue? Could the gutters be getting clogged and over flowing over the fascia into the wall? I'm sorry I didn't think if that before, it was actually my 13 year old daughter who pointed this out to me lol. Maybe she is smarter than her mom

Erin

You need to cut into the wall from the inside, You will be able to tell if the water is coming from above or not. I would check the attic for leaks. Is the roof 35 years old.
What ever the cause the wall needs to be dried out.