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Help Me De-Stink This House!
Mr Pink
I got catsfor youRegistered User regular
I got catsfor youRegistered User regular
I recently purchased my first ever house (well, rent to own, but it's almost the same thing). It's a really neat old place tucked away on a shady road, it's quiet, and I plan on converting one of the extra rooms into a recording area for my band. Sounds good, right? Just one thing -
The house stinks.
The people that lived there before me apparently had a few cats and dogs, and I'm suspecting that they might not have always made it away from the carpet for potty time. They were also elderly, so I'm guessing they either got used to the smell, or never noticed it. However, it's pretty damn stinky.
Here's the problem: this Saturday (three days away) I'm having a bunch of friends over to celebrate the house, place a little Rock Band, etc. So basically I have three days to make this house not smell like a dog pen.
Ideas, H/A? Favorite products? Secret tips?
The house stinks.
The people that lived there before me apparently had a few cats and dogs, and I'm suspecting that they might not have always made it away from the carpet for potty time. They were also elderly, so I'm guessing they either got used to the smell, or never noticed it. However, it's pretty damn stinky.
Here's the problem: this Saturday (three days away) I'm having a bunch of friends over to celebrate the house, place a little Rock Band, etc. So basically I have three days to make this house not smell like a dog pen.
Ideas, H/A? Favorite products? Secret tips?
Mr Pink on
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Yeah, it's carpet. And I'm pretty sure I'll have it redone within the next month. I just need something so that my party guests are not put off by the odor.
Shit loads of air fresheners, Fabreeze, etc. If you have time to hang around the house, you could open up all the doors/windows and see if it airs out any. Maybe even paint a few walls to get that newly painted smell in there.
I agree with the others though, 86 the carpet as soon as you can.
This intrigues me. Will it work with a regular vacuum?
You're not going to de-stink it in the next few days, not without replacing at least the flooring.
He doesn't have to get it ready to board tenants. It's just for a party. During the event the windows can probably stay open, and if it's a real problem then burn incense, smoke some pot, use an oil burner, a Glade plugin, or some scent-neutralizing spray.
Bake some cookies, make a cake or something like that afterward and nobody will ever know your house smelled like a litterbox the day before.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
The baking cookies is a great idea.
Don't rent a steam cleaner, as they're expensive and you're ripping up the carpets soon anyway. Some carpet powder, some febreeze, a vacuum and some air fresheners should do ya fine.
One tip I've heard is washing the walls/re-painting. I don't want to re-paint quite yet (getting married next year, and would like the fiance to have a say in the colours), but does anyone have any tips on washing walls, and getting the smoke smell out of a house?
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
If the smell is from the previous owners having a lot of cats and dogs and allowing them to do cat and dog things everywhere, no amount of febreze/incense/pot in the world is going to get the smell of ammonia out of that house.
No matter what you do in there, it's going to smell like cat piss and wet dog that has been covered up with n.
For the temperarly removing the smells, go the rug doctor routine in the main living area (costs me $80 with the upolstrey wand and you get 25 back if you return b the right time), any furniture they left and you are useing, wash down walls and/or ceiling with TSP, and feberez the crap outa stuff 2-3 hours before the party, You can find the one that is for pet smell and I find it works awesone on our occasional cat smells. Also leave windows door open early in the morning late in the evening (when it is cool) to help air it out.
Tips so far are solid. In the long term I'd get rid of carpet entirely. Its expensive, gross, far too high-maintenance, and super bad for anyone with asthma. Wood or fake-wood laminate stuff plus rugs for warm toes is best. At least if you spill paint or milk on a rug you can take it elsewhere to clean it.
Only thing I'd add is to put a cake of soap on each shelf of your linen and storage cupboards. Makes everything smell nice.
What is "TSP"?
With smoke, you likely have it caked on the walls (even if you can't see it) and that's causing the lingering odor. While painting would work, it would still leave the cause of the smell there (just sealed up) and that could gradually come through the new paint. Giving the walls a quick scrub with a strong cleaning agent, like TSP, would help actually remove the source of the smells.
Thanks for that. So this should be done as a part of a re-painting process, or can this be done independent of re-painting? I'm thinking something that strong would strip paint off as well as the smoke residue.
Ozone is highly reactive with anything (normal oxygen is O2, Ozone is O3, making it 'radical'), so I can see that working. Not sure how well it would deal when there is an actual source of the smell.
Right now it looks like I'm just going to clean the carpet and febreeze the hell out of them for Saturday (and have some incense/candles going) and then tear up the carpet later.
The problem I find with fabreez is that in any large quantity it starts to smell like someone stabbed a can of aerosol and let it explode in the room. Its best to combine it with fresh outside air so people in the room can breathe.
or, alternatively, bake some muffins.
South Georgia, so yeah, balls hot. That fan trick sounds like something I could do, though.
Oh fuck, I forgot about those things. My dad has one. He hired someone to do it and then they neve returned to get the machine back. The thing is pretty awesome.
Cat pee dries up and will get all in your nose when you start kicking up dust removing the carpet. We took all the carpet out of our house and were miserable when we hit the stairs.
My cat made a few bad spots on the particle board subfloor, I had to use a planer to fix the warped wood and some spray paint to fix it back. Wish I had thought more about the idea of primer and then paint but 8 months down and no problems, plus he's not hitting those spots again.
Also, we got one of those automatic aerosol sprayers at target that goes off every half hour and it helped a lot.
Good luck