On my list of “not fun, least favorite things about owning a home” has been all the nasty mystery smells that have either been here since moving in or like recently, pop up out of nowhere. The gross factor definitely doesn’t top the centipede problem but it is maybe a close second.
Since moving in I have been experimenting with different ways of getting rid of the musty, old and urine smells of this house. It wasn’t until last weekend when we returned from vacation that we discovered the mother of all stink. Apparently a mouse ate some poison left outside our house and then proceeded to bring it in our house to share with its friends. Then they all died between the floors in our bathroom. 💀😵 Or at least that’s what we think happened because it smells like rotting death! Of course just in time for my parents to visit and have to use that bathroom. Oops sorry mom and dad! 😳 Definitely not something I even thought about when dreaming of buying a home. We had our friendly pest control guy come out and plug up the mouse holes which would of course cause more death to anything stuck inside, wahoo!!
So now to tackle the stink, which can apparently last up to 2 weeks! We are about a week and a half in and still battling. 😫 The recommendation we got to survive the stink was to buy an odor sponge which we tried and it just smelled like orange death, definitely worse. So I went back to what I have been using for other odors around the house. Here are my favs so far.
– Moso Natural Charcoal Bags, natural air purifiers and they last 2 years!
– Diffusing Purification Essential Oil. This has worked the best at overpowering the stink!
– A Mixture of vinegar and water has been amazing at getting odors out of our wood floor.
– Baking soda in drawers that smell musty.
– When all else fails sometimes you just need to mask it with a candle!😓 My fav right now is this Tobacco Cedar one from Target.
Would love to hear if anyone else has any tips or tricks to get me through this last week!