Use a vacuum with a HEPA filter to remove microparticles from your carpets and soft furnishings, and also ventilate your home by opening all windows at least once a week. Scented cleaners will also help to make your home smell clean and fresh.
Idea #1: Clean and Vacuum Carpets and Floors
Not cleaning and vacuuming your carpets regularly is not only a health hazard but can leave behind a bad residual smell that will affect you daily.
Even though vacuum cleaners are great for removing dirt and dust from your home, it is necessary to maintain them properly to keep them doing an efficient cleaning job. Dirt accumulates over time, and if not removed regularly, it results in an unpleasant odour coming from your cleaner while you are using it.
One of the main reasons why carpets smell after a deep clean is the underlay. Basically, this part of the carpet padding is not exposed to direct light or air, so it takes a lot more time to dry properly. And you know what excess moisture leads to? Precisely – mould and mildew smell after carpet cleaning.
2. Vacuum: If you prefer to vacuum up your scent (as you would vacuum up everyday dust and dirt), you can simply sprinkle a teaspoon of your vacuum scent onto the floor, and vacuum up the particles directly.
It's all thanks to a clever gizmo known as an HVAC scent diffuser. These are ultra-quiet attachments to heating/air conditioning systems that use high amounts of air pressure to deliver nanoparticles of scented oils uniformly around a room, area, or building.
“We would recommend vacuuming at least once or twice a week—and more often if we have pets—with the right tools to remove dust quickly and effectively," Patel advises.
You can buy commercial carpet deodorizer powders, but you can also make a simple carpet powder at home with baking soda. This household item neutralizes odor, which can make your carpet smell better. You can use plain baking soda or stir in essential oil to add a pleasing scent.
Does baking soda ruin your vacuum? Baking soda's minuscule size can clog the filters and potentially damage vacuum cleaners – particularly the motor. If you're using a bagless vacuum, the potential chokepoint would be the cyclonic filters and the post-motor HEPA filter. For bagged vacuums, it's the HEPA filter.
Place a few drops of your favorite essential oil into your vacuum cleaner bag or dust container. The vacuum motor will diffuse it around your home as you clean. Use this same idea with your home air filter. Think of it as a sort of essential oil diffuser for a whole house freshening.
Again, due to the small particle size of baking soda or freshener product, these can clog the pores of your vacuum's bag or HEPA filter. Or it can "cement" debris into the cyclones of your bagless vac! This can drastically reduce suction resulting in poor cleaning performance and cause clogs to form.
Why does my house smell? A weird smell in a house can come from numerous sources, including appliances, furniture, carpets, fabrics or issues like mold or mildew. Occasionally, odors may be caused by sewer gas, natural gas leaks or animals that have died between walls, in attics or under decks.
It's called olfactory adaptation. Olfactory adaptation, alternatively known as olfactory fatigue and nose blindness, is just a temporary inability to identify certain smells after prolonged exposure to it.
“One of the best methods to tell if your home stinks is to leave it. Go away for a day or two, or even a week,” says Bryan Stoddard, handyman and interior designer. “Close all windows and doors, shut the blinds, and seal the place up air-tight.
This makes woody scents a popular choice when it comes to hotel scents. And of course, you may also choose wood scents like birch, pine, sandalwood as your home fragrance. Having woodsy scents in your home would instantly make it feel and smell like a 5-star hotel.
Reed diffusers are great for keeping your home fragrant while you're away. They disperse scents naturally and do not require heat or electricity. Get a few in the same scent and place them in various rooms to fill your entire place with a luxurious fragrance.
Citrus essential oils offer a light, fresh and energizing scent that smells refined and uplifting. This type of fragrance is used in 5 star hotels regularly and often boasts a combination of orange, grapefruit, bergamot, lemon and lime.
Some of the best odor eliminators are coffee grounds, tea, vinegar, oats, and baking soda. Leaving a bowl of any of these odor absorbers out in a room that's due for a little freshening up will help clear out the less-than-pleasant smells from the air.
By vacuum sealing your fish beforehand, you'll prevent smells from wafting into the house while simultaneously preserving the catch for longer. Even foods that don't ordinarily smell can spoil and become a problem later on.
Routinely dusting and vacuuming can help you pull a lot of dust out of a room—and this is an important step since the dust that is left in a room can get stirred up in the air and create a musty scent.
Clean the carpet with vinegar to both deodorize and spot clean. Put white or apple cider vinegar into a spray bottle along with some warm water (about one-half to one cup of vinegar for each gallon of water), and spray the area well. After spraying, let the area dry completely.