If your house smells funny, be sure to check these 11 problem areas.

Checking your trash can for possible sources of odors is the first step in inspecting your home. It makes sense: waste stinks. Even if you use bags and dispose of them regularly, crumbs and drips can fall onto the sides of the bucket, which become an ideal breeding ground for bacteria.

To clean a bucket, cleaning service manager Abe Navas advises first spraying it with diluted bleach, then rinsing it, washing it with soap and washing it again with bleach. clean water. Do you want to eliminate any possibility of unpleasant odor? Throw out the trash every day, even if the bag isn’t full yet.

Do you smell like borscht that you didn’t cook? Does laundry take a long time to dry? In winter, when we rarely open the windows, is there stale air in the rooms? The ventilation may not be working as well as it should.

Checking ventilation systems for odors is very simple: you don’t need to smell anything. Open the windows and the door of the room, take a square of toilet paper measuring 10 by 10 centimeters, bring it to the ventilation grille. If it is still, you need to call a specialist – there may be a blockage in the ventilation ducts.

Sometimes checking the bathroom for fungus and odors reveals nothing: the walls and plumbing appear perfectly clean. If you understand that, despite this, something is wrong with the air, pay attention to the basket with dirty laundry. Navas advises moving it to another location where the items won’t be exposed to steam and humidity — or washing the clothes as soon as possible.

Checking the sewer system for odor-causing issues is a task best left to a plumber, as there are a variety of reasons why a “toilet” smell may appear in the home – for example, a Leaking pipe connection.

However, you can easily deal with some bugs yourself. For example, if the water is flowing poorly, the stench may be caused by a blockage – hair, grease and soap residue that has built up inside the pipe over the years. Getting rid of them is not particularly difficult – use a special product or caustic soda.

Also check the toilet rim – if a thick layer of limescale has formed there, there are probably huge colonies of pathogenic bacteria living there, the waste from which spoils the air. To restore the smoothness of the toilet surface and eliminate odors, you can use this simple trick.

Strange, isn’t it? Checking the drainage system for odors and blockages seems like a logical step; Checking the fireplace grill and chimney for the causes of the odor is less often remembered, but such a step also seems reasonable. But who will smell a newly purchased sofa? After all, he’s… Well, new!

However, physiotherapist Bart Wolbers explains that a “new” smell that lingers for a month is a red flag. It can be caused by volatile organic substances, some of which are dangerous, and so you need to pay attention to your well-being. After purchasing furniture, do you have headaches more often and the mucous membranes of your nose and throat are constantly irritated? It might be worth asking for your refund.

The situation of sheets and duvet covers is very interesting. For example, checking a refrigerator to detect the causes of an unpleasant odor is very simple: just open it. However, with a bed, everything is more complicated: as spatial organization specialist Jennifer Snyder explains, we practically do not feel our body, and therefore we cannot understand that the linen no longer smells of the scent of the peaks mountains. The solution is simple: wash it every week if you shower in the morning, and once every two weeks if you bathe in the evening before bed.

Inspection of pet trays, beds and cages is a mandatory item that should be included in a preventive home inspection. If an unpleasant odor appears in animals, analyze the situation: is it a question of hygiene and it is enough to wash the bowls and bedding more often? Checking the odors of pets and their litter boxes showed that it was not the unsuccessful litter, but the cat itself that had become the source of the stench? In this case, you should contact your veterinarian.

Read also: 6 Reasons Your Dog Smells and What to Do About It: The Vet Explains

As Ron Shimek, owner of an appliance repair company, explains, every time you wash your washing machine, moisture lingers in your washer, making it an ideal home for bacteria. . You don’t want them to live there? Leave the door open and the detergent drawer out for several hours after removing things.

Checking plants for odors and rot is another step of the inspection that should not be forgotten. Here’s how to understand that a healthy-looking flower emits an unpleasant odor: at its base you will see a damp and soft brown or brown spot. Have you noticed a similar defect? Remove the plant from the ground, remove the damaged area, sprinkle the “wound” with broad-spectrum antibiotic powder, change the soil completely and stop watering for a few days.

The vacuum cleaner and its filters should be checked for odors while it is running – otherwise you won’t smell anything. If you smell something burning, contact a specialist; If you experience rotten miasma, it’s probably because you inserted a filter into the device that was still damp after washing – clean it again according to the instructions and dry it thoroughly. Does it smell like dust? Change (or wash) the bag, replace (or wash) the filter, check if the hose is clogged, wipe the inside of the vacuum cleaner. Check out this tip: if you add a few drops of essential oil to a bag, after cleaning, the whole house will smell good.

Checking cabinets and closed spaces for unpleasant odors showed that it is they who spoil the atmosphere in the house? This is a fairly common problem: there is no ventilation in it, we rarely clean the shelves, but we often only put apparently clean clothes there. Five simple tips will help you keep the clothes in your wardrobe fresh – apply them and you’ll never wrinkle your nose searching for the right thing in the depths of your wardrobe.

So we figured out how to eliminate odors from 11 problem areas in the house. But what can be done to prevent their appearance? Here’s what the professionals advise.

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