Why your home has a bad smell and how to fix it
From fried fish to a filthy rubbish bin, most smells in your home are easy to pinpoint.
There are, however, more insidious aromas that stay around in your home and seem impossible to eliminate.
The key to keeping odours from taking over your home is being able to identify them.
Most people is striving to have a nice-smelling home, especially when you’re placing your home on the market or hosting a party. The problem with smells is that homeowners can actually become blind to a scent, unable to smell their home the way other people do.
Perhaps you’ve noticed a musty or wet cardboard smell in your home. Or maybe you’re referring to it as “old home smell”. Either way, one of the most common causes of bad smells is hidden mould, usually in the walls. There are some types of mould that can be toxic. So it’s important to get rid of any bad odour.
Here are a few examples of bad smells in your home and how to get rid of it.
Check out your carpets and walls
The carpets and paint in your home can absorb bad smells over time. These bad odours are usually caused by smoke, pet urine and spilled food. It’s always wise to give your walls a fresh coat of paint every five years. Doing that, you’ll get rid of most bad smells. If you’re renting, you might not be able to paint the walls. So it’s best to discuss this with your landlord first and together you can come up with a solution to get rid of the bad odours. But at the very least, you should clean the walls, ceilings and baseboards to get rid of as much of the stink as possible.
To replace your carpets might be the best and only option for removing the odour they’ve absorbed over time. But it’s not realistic for many people. It can be quite an expensive project and if you’re a renter, your landlord might not be willing to afford this expense. If replacing the carpet isn’t an option you need to look at ways of the treating the carpets to eliminate the smell or preventing a bad odour altogether. For instance, you could sprinkle baking soda on the carpets and let it sit for a while. It’ll take all the dirt out of the carpets. After that, vacuum the carpet and the baking soda with it.
Your dishwasher might be filthy
Every now and again, maybe once a month, you should clean out your dishwasher. Beyond the basics, every dishwasher needs a deep cleaning every now and then. If yours smells like old food or gunk, it’s time for a scrub down. The seals and dishwasher trap are the two main areas to focus on when cleaning.
Find the filter under your dishwasher’s sprayer. And if you haven’t cleaned it in a while, you might find scraps of food in there. The tray can sometimes come out, so you can rinse it in the sink. If can’t come out, then you’ll need a wet cloth to remove the gunk build-up.
Take a look at your sink pipe
If there’s a bad smell coming from your bathroom, the pipe under the sink could be obstructed. The bend in the pipe can collect things like hair, toothpaste, gel, and dirt. It’s best to remove the pipe and clean it out. And to dissolve the clog without removing the trap, you could pour an enzyme-based cleaner down the drain. Do so every day until the enzymes ate away all the waste trapped in there. It’s important to treat the drains regularly to prevent future clogs.
Also, check out the water heater
You should look to see if your water heater’s anode rod is shot. The bad smell in the sink sometimes comes from the water and not the drain. Fill your sink with hot water. Leave it in there for a minute then put your nose close to the water and sniff. If it smells bad, then you’ll know it’s the water heater.
Lastly, the washing machine
The door seal on the front of the washing machine is airtight to keep water from spilling out. So if you close the door when you’re done, the water doesn’t have a way to evaporate. And that’s likely to create an environment in which mould and mildew can form and grow. It’s always best to leave the door open when you’re not using it. Alternatively, if you don’t want to leave it open, you could buy a product (whether it’s a soap, gadget or filter) designed to remove odours from high-efficiency washers.
Bring a fresh smell in your home by deep cleaning and making use of scented products. But the last thing you want is for your home to smell like a potpourri factory, so it’s best to stick to one fragrance, for example, the Airoma Essence Range.