Keep things dry with a dehumidifier in your basement, and try leaving out a bowl of vinegar for around 15 minutes to neutralize any odor.
The vinegar will absorb the odor (your room will smell a bit like salad for a few days, but it's worth it) and over time the smell will dissipate.
While vinegar is a magical cleaner that you can use on almost any surface, its strong odor can make cleaning a little bit of a challenge. Of course, over time, the smell will dissipate, but you shouldn't have to wait around for the smell to fade.
Deodorize the Room
Unpleasant odors lurk in the carpets, rugs, and upholstery. To remove these musty smells, fill a dish with half an inch of white vinegar and leave it out in the room until the smell dissipates.
Apple cider vinegar naturally eliminates odors without using chemicals, so dilute it with equal parts water, add to a spray bottle, and spritz it around your living room for a fresh clean scent. Studies have shown that ACV kills bacteria, so it can improve your indoor air quality.
Vinegar is an all-natural cleaning agent with a high level of acidity that can knock out stains, clear clogged drains, and give wood a brand-new shine. But it has a strong sour scent that can linger longer than you'd like.
White vinegar contains acetic acid, which neutralizes odors by killing the bacteria and mildew causing the bad smell.
It will bubble up like a school science project, but that reaction is what helps loosen the residue. Make sure your sink is plugged so they stay submerged, and let it soak for 30 minutes to an hour before scrubbing away with a scouring pad, the scrubby side of your sponge, or steel wool.
It has powerful antimicrobial properties that may help ease skin infections and soothe irritation. As a mild acid, ACV may also help restore the natural pH balance of your skin.
Vinegar doesn't sanitize or disinfect
When you're cleaning to eliminate the germs that cause colds, flus & viruses, you'll want to shelve your vinegar mix. The reason is that vinegar is not an EPA registered disinfectant or sanitizer, which means you can't count on vinegar to kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses.
Simply warm 1 cup (240 mL) of white vinegar and apply it directly to glass (a spray bottle is best for this particular solution). If your windows are extra dirty, you can leave this solution on your windows to soak for a minute or two before you rinse it off.
White distilled vinegar is the best vinegar for cleaning because it doesn't contain a coloring agent. Therefore, it won't stain surfaces. Staining can happen when cleaning with a darker-colored vinegar.
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.
So, does boiling vinegar actually clean the air? The short answer is no, as far as current scientific research is concerned. Acetic acid, the active component of vinegar, is capable of killing pathogens, but only through direct contact.
Yeah, vinegar can be seriously pungent, and even if the smell does dissipate over time (which it totally, totally does), we very much understand that you might not have the time to wait, or might just not want to.
Baking soda is often used for this purpose, but there are other ways to neutralize vinegar if you don't have baking soda on hand. One option is to mix the vinegar with water in a 1:1 ratio. This will dilute the acidity of the vinegar and make it safe to pour down the drain.
Add half a cup of vinegar to a quart of water and allow to simmer on the stove for a few minutes. This will remove smell of burnt food and many other odors from your kitchen (and burned-on food from your stainless steel pots).
Vinegar is sometimes used as a fabric softener or for getting rid of stains and odors in laundry. But as with dishwashers, it can damage the rubber seals and hoses in some washing machines to the point of causing leaks.
According to the Vinegar Institute, “Because of its acid nature, vinegar is self-preserving and does not need refrigeration. White distilled vinegar will remain virtually unchanged over an extended period of time.
Once opened and exposed to air, however, harmless “vinegar bacteria” may start to grow. This bacteria causes the formation of a cloudy sediment that is nothing more than harmless cellulose, a complex carbohydrate that does not affect the quality of the vinegar or its flavor.
Vinegar is a fermented product and has an “almost indefinite” shelf life according to the Vinegar Institute [1]. “Because of its acid nature, vinegar is self-preserving and does not need refrigeration.
You can wash your laundry with distilled, white vinegar as well as apple cider vinegar. Vinegar has a number of benefits, both as a food and as a cleaning aid. Vinegar works by loosening zinc salts or aluminum chloride, which means that dirt won't stick to your clothing.