Our house smells bad! It smells like food gone bad, but I can’t figure out where the smell is coming from! It has smelled bad for a couple weeks straight.
At first I thought it was the dirty dishes, since we have a habit of letting them pile up in the sink an sit for a couple days. But, the dishes have been clean and caught up for the past few days and it still stinks when I walk in the door. I cleaned the stove and Samuel cleaned the counters, I checked under the stovetop, it’s fine. The smell is not coming from the trash can or the fridge. It seems to be coming from all over but I think it might be strongest around the sofas. But then I’m not sure. The smell is everywhere! As far as I can see, there is no food or anything on or around the sofas. I tried to leave some cotton balls soaked in lavender essential oil around but now it just smells like bad food and lavender. I open the windows as often as possible and even turn the fan on sometimes. Nothing helps!
AAGH! It’s driving me crazy and I’m embarrassed to have people over!
Any ideas? Air freshener recommendations?
Baking soda is pretty much the cure for all smells. Sprinkle it all over your carpet and furniture, leave it there overnight, and then vacuum it up the next morning.
But if you’re smelling it everywhere in the apartment, could it possibly be coming from one of the air vents or something? If it persists, you might get the maintenance guy to come inspect it.
baking soda absorbs odors. i used it on my cigarette smelling apartment at the beginning of the year
I don’t know what to do, but I just wanted to commiserate. That sounds horrible! Especially frustrating because it’s nothing that you did, so it’s not justifies or anything. If you were in the middle of the country, I would think maybe a mouse found itself a way into your apartment and died, but you’re in Provo, and so I doubt that’s what happened.
Good luck getting the smell out, and let us know when you do manage to!
Sometimes our Garbage Disposal would a little bit funky– you could perhaps pour a little a bleach down it while it is on. It helped when we lived there.
Well, the best thing to do is to isolate the location of the smell. This can be a little tricky, especially in apartments. It involves closing off all doors after thoroughly venting, turning off the AC/heater, and leaving the apartment for a few hours (try to time it with some other thing you are going to. When you come back, try to see if the smell is stronger in one room than another. This will at least get you closer.
If the smell is from food gone bad, and you know neighbors, asking neighbors if they have noticed a strange smell can be helpful, because they may have had flooding, and it is in the walls.
Any trace of the smell from outside your windows (a change in dumpster location.
Is it always the same bad food smell, or does it change, but always smells bad.
Look and see if your dishwasher (automatic) is draining (any leftover water in the bottom after a cycle) or if the drain hose is leaking in your cabinets under your sink (normally). While you are there, look carefully to see if any water is leaking from the piping from the sink.
If the smell is strongest from the couches, any way of removing the cushions to check (you probobaly already have). Then tilt the couch forward so it is facing down, and the under side of it visible. Are there any air vents directly behind the couch?
Do you keep food storage in a location other than your kitchen.
Have you noticed food in your freezer is not as frozen/fresh food is not as cold/you turned it to the lowest setting and it still isn’t as cold as you want?
The more you can isolate the location of the smell, the easier it is to find (with apartments, this can be done with plastic or a tarp and some painters tape, to block off open walkways). It is a hassle, but the satisfaction of finding the problem is very nice.
Just some thoughts!
P.S.-Carol would love to say hi
You can even use the plastic wrap on cupboards if you are able to isolate it that much and still can’t find the problem.
This happened to me, and finally I found it was a container of dried food in my cupboard — Portland is so humid. Basically I just tore my whole apartment inside-out, scrubbing away, to find the smell.
This is a little late, but once I found a smell in my house was the dish sponge in my kitchen. Now I leave a little dish soap on it after I rinse it when I’m through washing dishes.