How to Maintain a Fresh Scent in Your Home or Office: Controlling the Worst Odors

To Be Announced

What’s that smell? Have you ever happened to visit a place that definitely has a bad odor but the owners seem to be oblivious about it? This happens – the olfactory senses of people living in the house get overwhelmed and sooner or later, they become immune to the smell.

Houses and offices can have a bad odor because of several common reasons. It could be mold, it could be a plumbing issue or indoor smoking. It could be a range of things that cause people to scrunch their noses upon entering.

Lighting scented candles will lead solely to a temporary improvement or it will create an olfactory mishmash of bad and pleasant odors (not cute!). To get rid of bad smell forever, you’ll have to do a couple of things that go beyond masking the stench.

Identify the Source of the Bad Smell
All of your improvement efforts will fail until you identify the thing that’s making your home smelly. Stale fridge smell? A stinky garbage can? Your pets? Mildew?

Use your nose to get these questions answered. It’s very rare for a house or an office to simply smell bad throughout with no particular reason. Most often, there will be some highly specific cause of bad odor. 

Upon identifying the culprit, you’ll get to attack the issue with the right weapons of stench destruction. So take some time to find out what’s going on. This step is somewhat yucky but it’s of key importance for restoring the clean and fresh scent of your interior space.

Tackling a Stinky Trash Bin
No matter how often you throw it away, trash can become stinky very fast. This is particularly true for the people living in warm climates. Sometimes, a few hours will be all that it takes for the garbage bin to start smelling as if something has died inside of it.

Scrubbing the bin itself with a disinfecting cleaner every now and then will be a particularly good idea, especially if liquids have spilled inside. You may also want to disinfect the bin if the smell persists after you put a clean garbage bag inside.

Leaving used fabric softener sheets inside the trash bin can also give it a much nicer smell than its “natural” one. Good, old baking soda is another excellent possibility for deodorizing the trash bin.

That Wet Dog Stench
Whether you own a puppy or a kitten, you know what we’re talking about. The pet smell seems to always be there – it’s in the carpets, it’s in the furniture. It’s everywhere that you find pet hair (which means all over the house).

Air out all removable furniture parts and accessories like pillows, cushions, rugs and carpets. Keeping those outside and into the sun can have a rather positive impact on the nasty pet smell. Get in the habit of doing that on a weekly basis.

Next, buy a vacuum cleaner that has a HEPA filter. It’s a must for pet owners and individuals suffering from allergies. HEPA filters are capable of capturing small particles that regular vacuum cleaners can’t deal with – pollen, pet dander, tobacco smoke and dust mites can all be captured and thrown out of your home.

Finally, you may want to get the carpets washed professionally. The stench of urine could have gotten trapped inside, even if you’ve dealt with those pet puddles in a timely manner.

Can Smokers Live in a Stench-Free Home?
The first and the most obvious thing to do is to stop smoking inside. Every item in the house will absorb the smell and the more you keep smoking indoor, the more difficult it’s going to be to get rid of the stench.

To effectively get rid of cigarette smell that has accumulated through the years, you’ll have to do a thorough house cleaning. Scrub the walls and the ceiling. The ceiling is actually the one that retains most of the smell, which is why you may want to pay special attention to it. Ammonia-based cleaning products are the best ones.

The bad smell is caused by the tar and resin buildup left behind. Want to know what gets rid of those buildups in the best possible way? Vinegar! Everything that’s made of fabric and that can absorb the smell – upholstery, curtains, pillows, carpets, rugs, etc – can be rinsed with vinegar to get rid of the tobacco smell forever.

A Few Additional Smart Home Deodorizing Hacks
Regardless of where bad smell is coming from, it can be neutralized using one of the following smart hacks:

• Use kitty litter: that’s right – it can absorb just about every type of bad smell in the home. Kitty litter is ideal for getting rid of shoe smell, a stale odor in the fridge or in the trash can. Just put a little bit of it in the problem area and you’ll soon notice the improvement.
• Get rid of food smells: if you tend to do a lot of frying or if you cook spicy foods on a regular basis, you may find it impossible to get rid of that permeating smell. Boil some vinegar in water immediately after you’re done with cooking – it will get rid of even the most potent fried fish smell.
• Put a bit of ground coffee in the fridge: it will absorb all nasty odors. Don’t forget to remove the source of the nasty odor before getting started with deodorizing. 
• Make a natural air freshener: by adding 15 drops of tea tree oil to one cup of distilled odor. To add a nice scent to the freshener, you may want to use another kind of natural essential oil like lavender or mint. Put all of that in a spray bottle and enjoy!

By Cliff Derksen
Owner of First Impressions Janitorial