Even if perfect cleanliness and order reign in the house at first glance, a small scent can still be present. And sometimes you don’t even feel it when you stay in the apartment for a long time, but guests immediately notice it. We tell you how to remove unpleasant odors in the apartment, depending on the type and source.
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Complete instructions for removing stink
How to find the source
Elimination of various types of odors
— Tobacco smoke
— cat urine
— Mustiness
— Dampness
— Spoiled Food
— After renovation
— Sweat from shoes
— Gary
– Disinsection
— Sewerage
temporary disguise
Prevention
How to find the cause of the stench
If we are talking about obvious sources like sewers, such a question, as a rule, is not worth it. But tobacco or mustiness is sometimes not felt. And that’s why. Our sense of smell is arranged in an interesting way. When we are constantly surrounded by some kind of aroma, then over time we stop noticing it, because the receptors get used to it. But the guests who come to you will definitely feel it.
To find out if you need to fight the stench, you need to leave the house for a while. Remember that very feeling when you return to the apartment after a vacation or just a long absence — “homemade” aromas hit your nose right from the threshold. If the stench is present, you will immediately feel it too.
It is possible not to determine the source the first time, so you need to literally spot-check potentially “problem” areas. Only by accurately establishing the cause, you can choose the most effective way to eliminate it.
Unpleasant odors in the apartment and how to eliminate them
Tobacco smoke
Being in a smoky apartment is unpleasant and even dangerous to health. Tobacco smoke gradually eats into furniture, wallpaper, textiles and other items. Even if you smoke not in the house, but on the balcony, the smoke will still penetrate into the room.
If we are talking about a fresh stench, you can only get by with thorough ventilation at least 4 times a day. And to deal with the old, you need a whole strategy.
- Hang wet towels in different parts of the apartment. They will absorb an unpleasant odor.
- Wash all home textiles: curtains, tablecloths, blankets, pillowcases, etc.
- Wash all surfaces in the house using special household chemicals or diluted citric acid.
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Clean the soft upholstery of sofas and armchairs, in difficult cases, invite a cleaning service.
- Books and other paper products can be aired on the balcony.
Such general cleaning will help eliminate the stubborn stink from tobacco.
cat urine
If the cat did not go to the tray, but to another place, even after thorough cleaning, a pungent smell of urine may remain. There are two ways to eliminate, choose depending on the surface on which the disaster occurred.
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Upholstered furniture, carpets . Mix a solution of salt and liquid soap. Apply it on the affected area and leave it on for a few hours. Then rinse this place with water, remove excess moisture and sprinkle coffee beans on top. Leave them for one day, during which time they will absorb the remnants of an unpleasant odor. -
Floor . Wash the area with water mixed with alcohol or citric acid. After that, ventilate the room well.
Mustiness
Closets with clothes need to be cleaned and ventilated regularly, otherwise they will have musty and stale air. It is especially pronounced in compartments in which unwashed items are stored for a long time. Then the problem arises, how to get rid of the old smell in the house.
To freshen up this area, empty the closet of clothes and wash them. Wash all drawers and compartments from the inside. Place in the corners of a sachet with lavender or wipe the surfaces with a cotton pad dipped in this essential oil. Lavender is very good at dealing with these types of stench and fills the space with a pleasant aroma.
Sometimes the smell of old things is mistakenly confused with the smell of old people. This smell of old age can eat into clothes and furniture, it will help drown out regular wet cleaning with ventilation of rooms.
Dampness
Most often, it smells of dampness in bathrooms that have problems with ventilation. Moisture evaporates slowly and poorly, settles on various surfaces. Perform a general cleaning, wash all surfaces with cleaning agents and wipe dry.
However, the stench will increase even more if mold has appeared from dampness. It can be removed with the help of special means, which contain chlorine, or use the folk method.
- Mix vinegar or baking soda with water.
- Apply the resulting mixture to the area with mold, rub with a sponge and rinse. The smell will disappear along with the pollution.
food in the fridge
Leftover food in the refrigerator can make itself felt even through the closed door. Such smells in the kitchen can spoil the whole appetite, especially if the products are gone or the flavors are simply mixed with each other.
If there is an old container of food on the shelf, just throwing away the contents and washing the container is not enough, the stench will still remain in the cell. In this case, it is necessary to empty, defrost the refrigerator and thoroughly wash each compartment.
To quickly remove odors, use a special deodorant for the refrigerator.
It contains special components that absorb the odor from spoiled products. From folk methods: you can put a piece of black bread on a saucer. It will absorb odors.
After renovation
The persistent aroma of finishing materials disappears for a long time, and this can spoil the festive mood of a housewarming party. In addition, constantly breathing «construction» is very harmful.
Just opening the windows and waiting is not enough. To speed up the elimination of this smell in the apartment, place buckets or other open containers of water in the rooms. It well absorbs the smell of repair with toxic fumes. Change the water twice a day so that it does not stagnate.
If being indoors is completely unbearable, you can resort to lethal force — dry steam treatment. It is carried out by special services, particles after spraying do not settle on surfaces.
Sweat in shoes
The smell of sweat from shoes can fill the entire hallway. If ordinary washing and drying of the product does not help, you can eliminate it with improvised means.
First, wipe the inside of the shoes with a cotton pad with alcohol. After drying, pour coffee beans inside. If they are not available, a few tablets of activated charcoal or orange peel will do. Many experienced housewives also advise using table salt for these purposes. However, it will be quite problematic to extract it, because the crystals are very small.
To get faster results, you can use special deodorants for shoes.
cinder
After a small fire or burnt food, a specific burning smell will remain. It can be eliminated in several stages.
- Get rid of all burnt items.
- Open windows and ventilate rooms.
- Proceed to general cleaning with washing absolutely all surfaces.
- Place containers of coffee beans or salt near the scene of the incident.
- Place buckets of water or wet towels in different parts of the apartment. The latter will eventually need to be thrown away, so use the ones that you don’t mind.
You can get rid of soot with the help of special tools that are easy to find in household chemical stores.
Disinsection
When bedbugs and cockroaches start up in the apartment, the room is treated with strong chemicals. The cheaper the drugs are, the stronger they smell when sprayed. Caustic and odorous notes can disappear for a long time, it is not dangerous to breathe them, but very unpleasant.
To get rid of these odors, carry out a general cleaning with washing of all furniture and surfaces. Pay attention to all hard-to-reach corners of the apartment — they may contain odorous «remains» of insects. To clean the sofas, you can invite a cleaning service.
If the specific smell has not disappeared, treat the entire room with dry steam. This service is best ordered from specialists.
Sewerage
Such a stench can appear in the kitchen and in the bathroom. There may be several answers to the question of how to eliminate this unpleasant smell in the apartment. It all depends on the reason.
- Dissolution by chemicals.
- Plunger.
- Plumbing rope.
How to quickly disguise
Sometimes there is no time to completely remove odors in an apartment, and they need to be masked for a short time, for example, before guests arrive. Use one of these methods.
- Use fragrances: candles, diffusers, an aroma lamp with essential oils or incense.
- Open the windows and hang wet towels around the apartment to absorb the odor.
- Roast the peel of citrus fruits — lemon, orange, etc.
- Place in different corners of the bowl or saucer with coffee beans, table salt or activated charcoal, these are aroma absorbers.
- Use special ionic deodorants for the apartment.
Prevention
We figured out how to eliminate unpleasant odors in the apartment and found out that not all stench is due to the fault of the owners. However, some of them are easy to prevent to breathe only clean and pleasant air.
- Ventilate the room as often as possible: open windows, organize good ventilation in the bathrooms.
- Regularly clean throughout the apartment, including inside closets. Do not allow unwashed clothes to be stored in them for a long time, locked tightly.
- Use air purifiers with an ionization function or home ozonizers.
- Do not smoke even on the balcony.
- Get rid of spoiled food promptly.
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