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.
Rather than plugging deodorizers into your electrical sockets or lighting an arsenal of scented candles, use a few household staples such as baking soda, distilled white vinegar, coffee grounds, vanilla extract and lemons to get rid of odors once and for all.
Air purifiers work by filtering and removing particles that may cause bad smells. However, the EPA states that no air cleaner or filter will be able to eliminate all the particles that can cause foul odors.
Musty and Dusty
A musty or dusty smell is often a sign of mold or mildew, especially in humid or moisture-prone environments like the basement, laundry room, kitchen, or bathroom. Mold and mildew can create severe respiratory problems and can exacerbate allergies and asthma in sensitive individuals.
Common culprits to watch out for include mold and mildew, dust, dirty laundry, stains and spills, pet accidents and leftover food. Once you determine the source of the smell, dispose of it and clean the area as needed.
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.
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.
“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.
It's most common smelled in either places where mold spores can colonize undisturbed like basements and closets, or in places where there is plenty of moisture like bathrooms. If your home or clothing smells musty, chances are you have mold or mildew hiding out.
All homes have a smell. But some homes… smell better (or, let's be honest, worse) than others. And if you're worried your home might not fall in the better category, don't worry.
A bedroom can smell in the morning as a result of body odour, dust, moisture in the room, dirty bedding and a messy room. Poor air circulation at night makes unpleasant odours linger until morning. These smells can be avoided by regularly cleaning the bedroom and making sure to air it out every day.
Even Martha Stewart's abode has a distinctive odor. But not one of you could pick your own home's aroma out of a scent lineup. We adapt to smells very quickly. Within the space of just a few breaths, we can lose our ability to detect new odors.
Even if the least of someone's house problems is the odor, it is a good thing to do to tell them privately that there is an odor problem so that the owner/host can do something about it for any future guest they may have, and for themselves.
One of the most common issues of drain odor is due to blockages and clogs. Any type of blockages, whether they are partial or full, can prevent waste water from properly leaving your home. Over time, this stagnant water sitting in the pipes can build up bacteria and produce pungent odors throughout the night.
It's often described as musty and earthy, and may even smell like rotting vegetables or plants. You might notice a musty smell, but not be able to see any mold growing. In this case, you should look for areas that might be exposed to water.
For an Instant Fix. Another way to quickly get that lemon scent filtering through your house is to simply cut a few lemons into quarters and put them in a pot of water. Let the water boil for a while, and as that citrus-infused steam is released into the air, everything will start to smell a little bit fresher.
In fact, according to research published in Nature, your nose can detect about one trillion smells! But your own underarms could reek and you might not be able to tell: Humans are prone to what scientists call olfactory fatigue; our sense of smell just gets plain tired out by familiar odors and stops detecting them.