Top Ten Ways to Remove Offensive Odors from Your Home
There are ten steps for removing odors from your house. The work is hard and exacting. If you are not in good physical shape you would be better advised to call in the professionals and have the experts do the work for you. There are many odors that may permeate the textiles and fabrics in your home that are offensive and that need to be removed for your comfort or to make your home saleable. Some of those odors are cooking odors, particularly fish and curry odors, smoke from cigarettes or oven fires, pet odors or the odor from illness or incontinence.These top ten steps should take you a long way down the road to fresh air and more harmonious living.
You will need:
* A gallon of household chlorine bleach (do not allow bleach to mix with ammonia)
* Tri-sodium phosphate
* A gallon of apple cider vinegar
* Large container of baking soda
* Lemons
* extra furnace or air conditioner filters
* dishwashers gloves
1. Open windows and doors and place a large fan where it can blow fresh air in and a second fan to exhaust the odors out.
2.Replace attic insulation. The odors from cooking rise in the heat and are trapped in the attic insulation. The insulation cannot be cleaned or effectively deodorized and must be discarded. Completely clean the entire attic and allow it to dry, and then replace the insulation with new material. After the insulation has been replaced you need to have a hood with an exhaust fan placed over your stove to prevent the cooking odor problem from reoccurring.
3. Use a steam extractor for cleaning carpets and upholstered furniture. A commercial steam extractor can be rented from an equipment rental place. Hiring a professional truck mounted steam extractor is also an option, it will cost more, but it is much more powerful than a home style steam extractor and is worth the money if the odors are deeply imbedded and persistent. It is nearly impossible to get odors out of mattresses and foam pillows, these may need to be discarded and replaced.
4.Clothing, bedding, and drapes will need to be laundered or dry cleaned.Be sure to check the tags for care instructions and follow the directions.
5. Clothing may need to be washed several times to remove some odors; particularly stale cigarette smoke. If the odors persist use a formula consisting of:
- · 4-6 tablespoons of Tri-sodium phosphate
-
- · 1 cup of household chlorine bleach
-
- · 1 gallon of warm water
Soak color fast clothing in the solution for five to ten minutes and then launder as normal through a complete cycle. For safety, double rinse to remove all traces of the cleaning compounds and air dry outside.
Use plastic kitchen gloves to protect your hands from the chemicals. Tri-sodium phosphate is corrosive and full strength chlorine bleach can cause chemical burns.
6. Take care of the air circulation. Change the furnace or air conditioning filters once a day until you no longer smell offensive odors when you come into the house. The odor causing particles will be in all the ducting and you may need to have a professional duct cleaning service come clean your ducting to completely remove the particulates.
7. Ceilings, walls and floors need to be washed with the tri-sodium phosphate and chlorine solution and rinsed.
8. Unplug and wash your stove and refrigerator inside and out (including the back of the stove and the coils of the refrigerator) with a dish washing liquid, then rinse with a solution consisting of:
- · 1 cup vinegar
-
- · The juice of three lemons
-
- · And a gallon of warm water
9. Take all the drawers out of your cabinets and open all the cupboard doors, wash inside and out paying attention to the drawer slides and around the hinges. Allow to dry completely before replacing drawers and closing the cupboard doors.
10. When you have totally washed, and rinsed everything, allow it to dry completely. Place small dishes of vanilla extract, baking soda, sliced lemons or potpourri throughout the house to capture the odors and replace them with a better alternative.
For more detailed information on a particular odor call your county extension agent or a professional cleaning service. Pet urine odors can be removed with some commercially available products but the odor is hard to remove if it has soaked into flooring or furniture.
Published by Linda Miller
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6 Comments
Post a CommentI bought a house and it had been smoked in for years, so I this product called Rid Odor and it actually really works. I tried on my son's hockey gear as well same results. I will never use any other product than Rid Odor.
My mom has been a cleaning house for over 10 years now. She swears by a product called BON-CC-41. She has come across every kind of smell you can think of and hasn't found one that she can't tackle with this product! It works so great that she had so many requests for business that she was able to start her own cleaning company and hire more people. I use it around my house all the time as well! I love using it in my laundry because nothing comes out smelling bad. I used to have moldy smelling towels but not anymore! I even wash my pets with the product because it is safe! So for ANY household odor, use BON-CC-41!
If you like the smell of clean I want to share a new product with you. It's really designed to eliminate heavy duty odors like pet odors, smoke and even mold and mildew. But what is actually does is a completely disinfects and it destroys any bacteria mold or mildew that's causing the odor. So in essence, the place is actually disinfected and left smelling crisp and clean like no other product I've ever used. It also worked wonders for my husband's allergies. The product is called Room Shocker and you can find a website called BiocideSystems.com.
Very useful article. Thanks!
Not sure about all odors but if your trying to remove cigarette odor then you need to try vamoose 1808t. I used it in my apartment on the walls, my mattress, furniture, and sprayed it into my air conditioning vent. It smelled kinda bad at first but after awhile the odor was gone. My friends who don't smoke say they can't smell any cigarette odor and that's good cause they were always complaining about it.
My foam pillows were left at my uncle's who smoked, and when he sent them back to me I could barely even open the box... the odor was so strong... finally I threw the whole pillow in the washer on gentle cycle with a cup of vinegar added to the soap, and no more smell! You can wash this way by hand too if the pillow is too big for the washer. Contrary to belief, wetting the pillow didn't hurt it at all. Figured I'd try it since I'd be throwing them away anyway if the smell stayed... so now I get to keep my expensive pillows and be free of the smell!