All this seems highly subjective. OTOH, you have not provided objective parameters, like temperature and moisture indoors and outdoors and if it makes any difference. What happens when you close the window?

Your sense of smell is designed to be sensitive to changes. Assuming the odor comes from within the home, older buildings have accumulated dust and chemical residues in nooks and crannies. What and how much depends on age and history. Stale air can take on many smells. For reference, what is the average temperature and RH where you live? Consider alternatives to compare: "old book smell"? Moldy? Woody? Grassy? Decaying organic "garbage/old coffee grounds"/veggies? B.O.? Try visiting a library or used bookstore, an attic, a coffee shop.

From your first example with the dishwasher (something I am not sure I have experienced) and your reference to "wet dog smell" my guess is the source of the smell is likely mold and bacteria: akc.org/expert-advice/health/wet-dogs-smell-bad

Smell is strongly associated with memory. Perhaps something has triggered the memory of a smell. It would be hard to quantify your perception over the web.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfactory_fatigue

@poutnik --- I have edited the original question to include my response to your comment at the bottom

@BuckThorn --- I have edited the original question to include my response to your comment at the bottom

poutnik, buckthorn, drmoishepippik - If any of you would have preferred my response in a standard comment, then please let me know and I will correct it. As a new member, I appreciate the guidance on ideal back & forth manners. I can also respect personal preference.

We need (at least): exact locations (full addresses) of locations; times you lived there; a GIS analysis of weather patterns and specifically wind-borne particulate from any nearby places; and finally, we need to rule-out phantosmia: have you had a consultation with a neurologist (and had the appropriate scans) and was this condition ruled out?

I’m voting to close this question because this question is not focused on chemistry (yet). Feel free to edit in a way that asks about chemistry rather than a mix of physics, biology and physiology.

@Karsten - If you feel that chemistry / biochemistry are both ruled out, then that alone is good enough an answer for me. I have reasonable doubt it is related, but I'm not the expert here, that's why I'm asking. -- So, if you do close it, at least help me understand what details indicated most strongly that the ultimate answer will not implicate chemistry? Or where this is pointing.

@Toddminehardt - I can't tell if the first part of your comment is serious. As for phantosmia, I only rarely hear that term in medicine, so I'm surprised to hear it now. Rarely, because, just so you know, it tends to mainly occur in very bad situations. Situations that would require a neurologist's emergency care. As a result, it can tend to be a 'short lived' symptom of something quite bad.

Consider that you are the detector in this situation. It appears that only you are sensitive to whatever is causing the response (or mainly you), therefore questions include: what is causing you to respond? what makes you unique? Are you a reliable detector whose response does not depend on interfering factors?

Now you claim that this has occurred over decades, and you have not informed us whether there are particular attributes which might render you special. You are perhaps just particularly sensitive because you are living where this occurs, therefore you are conditioned by those surroundings in a way that a casual visitor would not be.

You claim that this happens only when you open windows, that it tends to be more humid outside where you have lived. Do you happen to live in the vicinity of places where people might take their dogs for a walk? Do you open the windows more often after it has rained? Do you live near street level, by a tree-lined street? Is there anything in common among places you have lived, or different? Are these old places? Wooden floors, old furniture and books? Do you clean frequently? How do you clean?

Do you have pets? This is not necessarily to suggest that the origin of the smell is a pet, only to discard that possibility.

Dog smell is due to bacteria and fungi growing on the pets' fur and skin. Similar odors might be produced by bacteria and fungi inhabiting places in your home.

When you open a window it creates a draft which causes air from different places in your home to mix. Smelly stale air under or behind the refrigerator might be brought into the open. The lingering smell is hard to explain. It may be a combination of changes in how sensitive you are to an odor when you allow air into the home and how much that odor persists.