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How do you keep your home smelling nice?
Assume cleaning is done on a regular basis. My apartment has a subtle "scent" from, what I assume to be, the vinyl flooring wax. I'd like that to not be the smell visitors first experience.
I'm considering an air purifier/diffuser, but don't know if they're effective.
Here's what we do:
Open the windows whenever the weather outside permits it. Fresh air is always nice.
HEPA air purifiers. HPA300 with generic replacement filters.
Stay on top of cleaning. Make sure your cleaning products aren't reacting with your floors.
I hate to shill a company, but kittypooclub for cat boxes. I couldn't ever keep up with cleaning a litter box to keep the smell away, and the disposable package makes it nice. It's pricey, but you can't smell cat pee in my house 95% of the time anymore.
If I really want a fresh scent for guests, I'll burn a candle for a few minutes.
Wife and I have been contemplating rejoining the ranks of cat owners (last cat passed ~3 years ago). From quickly looking at their site it appears to be a subscription service for a banker's box you fill with litter and dispose of entirely on a regular/frequent basis. With our previous cat I'd never suspected the litter tray of harboring cat funk. I'm wondering if I'm missing something important about the kittypoo service?
If you don't regularly wash out the plastic litter box, it'll eventually smell like pee as well. We have multiple cats, and I have a massive procrastination problem.
Plus, you don't realize how much your house smells like cat pee when you live there.
My strategy was to buy a large stainless steel catering-style tray, and use that as the litterbox. The benefit is that it's not susceptible to developing claw grooves that make it difficult to clean. And theoretically I can take it down to the dog washing station in my apartment building to wash it in an easy, less directly gross way. But I also suffer from procrastination and have yet to actually wash it out :/
There are two things going on. The first is that the box itself needs to be cleaned regularly. The other is that the entire supply of let on the box needs to be tossed and refreshed regularly. I feel like this second one isn't mentioned often enough, it can make a huge difference even if you aren't able to clean the whole box for a bit.
I don't mind scrubbing out the litterbox in the summer, but there's no way where I live to do this outside in the winter if you ever want it to dry.
We use a box that has cardboard liners. A friend uses a litter "system" that involves pee pads you change out that's supposed to help with smell.
As a complete aside, I encourage you to get two cats if you're contemplating one. I did it for the first time last year and the difference is astounding. The cats are obviously so much happier, especially when we aren't home.
For the cat litter, if you want a bit less waste, check out CatGenie. It’s a fully automatic litter box, but unlike other “automatic” boxes, this one actually disposes of all the waste by flushing it down the drain. It’s also dang expensive, but I can attest to the quality and reliability. We finally had to replace our model a few months ago, but the previous one lasted something like 10-15 years. Their support is also quite good.
Seconded. Cat Genie is great. The one downside: their plastic pellets will end up being everywhere.
Good idea about candles. I'll start simple instead of investing $100s into purifiers and filters. Now the trick is finding an appropriate scent.
Air filters!
They actually work pretty well. They suck up a ton of dust and, if you get one with a charcoal filter, neutralize odors. They obviously work in conjunction with cleaning because if you have a strong odor source in your home the filter will not prevent the source from smelling bad.
So, there are a lot of misconceptions about what size air filter you need. The companies selling them will rate the size of room it can filter when it's on the extremely loud turbo jet engine setting. You will most likely keep them at the medium fan setting, so cut their rating in half because that's actually how it will run 99% of the time. I personally think it works better to have multiple smaller units spread around your home instead of one giant one placed somewhere. You have to think about how air circulates in your home, so air transfer through a doorway is probably not going to be great unless there's a fan mixing the air around.
Have you considered trying to put some other vinyl floor wax on that smells better?
This probably doesn't apply to you since you said all the cleaning is kept up, but in case someone else has an odor issue, I'll include this.
Second, I would try to find the source of the smell. Have your carpets been cleaned recently or ever if you have them? How old is your furniture? Some Febreze and vacuuming your couch cushions may help a ton. Clean bedding matters a ton. Once a week sheet changes are important, and maybe Febreze your mattress occasionally for good measure. Also, cleaning any dirty dishes and making sure your sink is rinsed and cleaned before people come over will help.
20 years ago I had a significant other who was obsessed with air quality/odors. She went (imho) a little ocd on the topic and by the end of the relationship we had high end hepa filters on high in every room of the house 24x7. I'm sure the particulate count was significantly lower, but afaik all that filtering did nothing for the smell of the house.
Maybe some charcoal would have helped with the odor, the hepa filtration? Not so much.
Interesting. I guess it must depend on the odor. I keep my dog closed in my bedroom when I'm at work because it helps him with his anxiety and it definitely smells like dog in there when I get home. After I put a filter in there it's probably about 50% dog. I still open the windows to air it out, but the filter definitely does something.
Cleaning is definitely the best way to get rid of odors, but if there's something subtle, the filter handles it in my experience.
This is a very interesting experience. One I see easy to fall into. I've already been browsing HPA300 and filter replacement options. Very expensive. I'm sure it does something, but now I don't think I need to go this route. I'm thinking I want to introduce a subtle pleasant scent into my home instead.
In that vein, the only thing that matters about a HEPA air purifier is quantity of air going through the filter. Everything else is asthetics. There's a reason you can build an awesome air purifier with some MERV13 filters and a box fan.
I'd also add that air filtration is probably a good idea if the scent is from something in the home outgassing.
To add on this: my Nest thermostat has the option to have the furnace fan run
[15|30|45] minutes every hour, which not only helps to circulate air through all of the rooms, but also runs more air through the furnace filter to remove dust and other particulate.I couldn't really say for sure, but some people claim that that charcoal filters don't work for very long. For example:
There are more expensive air filters that supposedly work better. Or alternatively, opening a window when feasible should help.
I recently started using scented wax melts and I'm pretty pleased with them.
There are two fundamental designs - they either use an incandescent light bulb or a resistive heating element as the heat source. But there are a million variations on this so you can probably find one with an aesthetic that you like.
You can also get liners to put the wax cubes in to make cleanup and changing wax easy.
I have a few melters around my house, all plugged into smart plugs that run them for an hour at a time.
Oh that is so smart. I like the wax melts but after awhile they become overpowering. Having them on smart plugs to only run for an hour is genius. I am definitely going to try this.
My typical strategy is scented candles for the cold weather months and then I have my windows open a lot in warm weather months to create cross breeze and air the house out.
You might also want to try other wax melts. A friend of mine has her own little business (direct or etsy) and makes her own wax melts and there's definitely a balance to making sure they aren't too overpowering that a lot of melt-makers seem to ignore. Everything she makes she tests for longevity, "throw" (how strong the scent is), etc. well before she puts them up for sale and through her, her experience, and the melts/candles my wife has used, I find hers to be well balanced without the eye-watering strength of some others.
Do you know how long these last? These sound a lot more convenient than candles.
Best part of being a friend of mine is I get direct customer service to answer the question. Here's her resposne:
Thanks for that! I went ahead and ordered 2 melts. Love the theme/aesthetic.
Aww, that's sweet of you! What did you get?
Do know, that she's literally moving to a new apartment over the next couple of days, so probably won't get an order immediately.
Yeah, she's amazing in design/aesthetic and hoping her business takes off. I get the inside track to the new scents and designs she's got going. You would not believe the amount of effort she puts into her big themed boxes.
I got these two:
I was also considering the school book fair for fun. I'm happy supporting passionate startups. Also not in a hurry on my end, the wax warmer won't arrive in a jiffy.
I'm interested in exploring this. Do you have smart plug recommendations? Or are they simple/generic enough to "work" regardless?
The plugs I'm using are Ikea's ZigBee plugs hooked up to my Home Assistant instance. If you don't already have a home automation system set up then the automatic shut off may be tricky to set up. I think (but don't know for sure) that some of the wifi based plugs may have scheduling built into their apps but that would rely on internet connectivity and that's a whole other topic.
Your simplest approach if you just want to see if this works for you is probably to find a plug with a timer built in, like what are commonly used for holiday lights and decorations. A google search for "plug with timer" surfaces several options for less than 20 USD.
Don’t fiddle with liners, it’s a waste of time and money
Next time you want to swap wax, let it cool and put the wax bowl in the freezer for like 10 minutes. Then take it out and smack it into your hand with the wax side going first
try it
I like the liners because I like to swap out scents frequently. If I had to wait for the bowl to cool enough to safely go in the freezer then freeze enough to get the wax out it would inhibit that.
You can also toss three cotton balls into the melted wax, which in my experience tends to be enough to soak up the volume of one wax cube, and then dispose of that instead of using plastic liners (or use it as an excellent fire starter)
Get a dog. ;-)
But a little more seriously, our dog makes our house nice and smelly. It’s nice in a way I’m hesitant of admitting, but sometimes she smells like bread. We lovingly call her little baguette.
I’m sure my parents and sister, all cat lovers, find our house smelly, but tough luck for them. Little baguette is here to stay.
I know it's not what OP is looking for, but my real recommendation is to just let it smell. After a while it becomes very comforting, dog or not.
I look at the same way as having your "own" scent via perfume/cologne. It's something that becomes "you" after time. An apartment is harder because you're not necessarily going to stay there as long as a single-family house.
Ha, I thought you were joking. My brother has a dog and I couldn't survive the shedding and/or hair.
I love and make bread though; love the smell. It's sad it lasts a couple hours.
I totally get it. Our dog is often “Little Loaf” or “Little Croissant” depending on how he is sleeping.
Um. You might want to have her checked out for a yeast infection when that happens, just in case.
We leave our windows open when the weather is nice enough to permit it before and after work, as long as it doesn't interfere with allergies. That seems to help a lot. Just getting fresh air moving.
To add on to the air purifier suggestions. We have a couple box fans with 20x20 air filters from the store, fan suction keeps the filter against the fan. Cheap, non-proprietary, works great! We spray a bit of an air deodorizer disinfectant solution at it every several days.
I've built a few of these around the house, they are great! Keep in mind that putting the air filter directly against the fan causes a significant pressure drop and you will not be pulling enough air through the filter. It will make a difference, but barely.
For smaller spaces I used the box fan's box to create a 3-4 inch space between the fan and the filter. This gives a pocket of air the fan can actually cut and grab, pulling even more air through the filter. Huge efficiency increase.
If you have the space, use two air filters off the sides of the fan to a point in the rear forming a triangle from above, cardboard on top and bottom, properly sealed with copious amounts of duct tape.
Bonus points for creating a shroud on the front of the fan as well to smooth out the uneven flow around the edges.
I noticed when I was a kid that many people's houses seemed to have a unique scent. My aunt's house smelled like apple juice. My house smelled like cardboard. My grandparents' house smelled like lutefisk often enough that I still associate that scent with them, even though my grandpa smoked.
Our memories are strongly tied to scent. I noticed the last time I went home in the summer that I almost instantly relaxed from the smell of the poplar trees, something I'd never consciously paid any attention to beyond knowing what it was. I think of elementary school whenever I smell chalk and high school when I smell the stinky kind of dry erase markers.
I'm guessing that you probably don't like the floor smell because it isn't coming from something you've done to cause it. If it's actually wax, you can strip it off and use something more neutral. If it's the smell of vinyl, there probably isn't much to be done about that as an underlying scent. That isn't necessarily a bad thing! What you feel self conscious about, most people won't even notice unless one day they smell a similar scent and think of you.
On the other hand, you may find at some point that a passion of yours becomes tied to the scent of your house. Obviously baking can have a temporary effect. Woodcarving, painting, or building models might have an effect fairly constantly. Taking up any kind of fermentation based hobby definitely would.
some homes do just seem to have a distinct baseline smell of their own imo.
I'm pretty particular about smells, so a few things I like to do (beyond just cleaning):
Can only share what I do.
Clean counters everyday and robot vacuum the floors each morning. Try to get to a clean sink each day.
Keep the fridge declutterred as much as possible.
Get rid of carpets if you can, especially if you have pets.
Ozone machine an area if it has an air to it that doesn’t go away. Kind of a one and done deal.
If the kitchen exhaust fan doesn’t vent out of the home that’s going to be a huge contributor to odor.
Don’t cook high temp high smoke foods indoors. Steak is something I hate cooking in the winter for this exact reason.
You may want to drop the ozone generator.
This has been driving me nuts that there isn’t much written about ozone machines and their ability to neutralize odors, which is the one and only expectation I have for them. Looking at other articles it doesn’t look like much or any research was done on this subject, bummer.
The machines come with instructions not to run it while people and pets are in the area because it’s dangerous and incredibly stupid. The instructions also say to let the space air out. I think I did a full day when I’ve done it. It wasn’t clear in the article and other places I’ve looked if the area remains contaminated with ozone for days after their use.
Everything else about the article makes sense. It just would have been nice if the core use case of these machines was addressed.
From an HVAC perspective I can give you an idea.
First and foremost, an HVAC system is not built to clean your home, BUT, it's an excellent point of dispersion for an iWave Ionizer. It generates positive and negative ions, and your HVAC blower launches them around your home. It gets power from your HVAC unit itself. They were big during COVID, but our customers say they do a fantastic job of eliminating smells. There's probably an HVAC company near you that installs them. They're more or less self cleaning, sometimes the brushes on them just need to be wiped down, but that can be done during your regular HVAC maintenance anyways. Also since it's a small device inside your HVAC unit, you don't need to have standalone air cleaning boxes all over your house. I think my company charges somewhere around $600 to purchase and install it.
https://iwaveair.com/products/
I've always heard the big risk with ionizers is that they generate ozone, which is a pretty bad lung irritant. The EPA seems to agree. They say it's great at cleaning air (like after a fire), but the amount needed to do so is harmful to humans.
You're conflating two things unintentionally.
Ozone alone can be used to treat odors, however the amount needed to do so is harmful, absolutely. I'm not recommending a dedicated ozone generator.
While ionizers do generate ozone, it is as a byproduct, they do not generate ozone as a primary function.
We install the iWave-R, which meets the standard of .05 ppm of UL 867, which is the maximum the EPA allows for medical devices.
They make others that meet the standard of .005 ppm of UL 2998, which is the "Zero Ozone emission" standard, though I don't know how they compare to the -R. I have no idea what concessions were made to meet that standard.
Oh yes, but what I'm getting at is while this one specifically might meet the EPA standard for medical devices, others might not. So long as they're not making any health benefit claims, it's completely unregulated.
Hence my recommendation of that one specifically.
This is pretty interesting. I'll keep it in mind if/when I'll become a home owner. Kind of like having a water filter/softener installed.
Honestly, they're pretty simple devices to install. You just mount it near the blower and wire in the high voltage lines. You could absolutely have it installed in your apartment and then take it with you when you move. You can even order them on Amazon.
Just keep in mind I believe they come with a 3 year warranty, but that's voided if you do it yourself. Cost looks like it's around $370.
I have a simple one for you, that I've found helps immediately freshen the environment (e.g. so that the first thing guests smell isn't 'clean house and dog' but rather 'clean house and fresh laundry'): Febreze Fabric Spray.
A quick spritz on the couch, the welcome mat and the (carpeted) stairs goes quite a long way. As long as the base smell is, essentially, 'clean house' I find that these sprays immediately fix any semi-strong odour that's hanging around.
I will add that we used to use an essential oil diffuser (not in a wacky 'health' way but simply because I love the smell of lavender lol) but had to get rid of it after it turned out that vapourized essential oils are very dangerous for your pets' lungs. If you don't have pets then I would also recommend one of those as they're fabulous!
To add to this, Febreze "Small Spaces" diffusers work beautifully for cat litter box areas. The relatively neutral "Linen and Sky" scent doesn't seem to bother the cats at all. We've actually had commercial-perfect "I didn't know you had a cat" moments when guests visit.
This works well for me:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01728NLRG
That particular brand isn't necessarily anything special. I don't remember how I picked it out. But it does have a specific "Deodorization filter" you have to change it occasionally.
I can burn something and have the kitchen filled with smoke and fire alarms going off. If I turn this on full speed it smells completely fresh in 30 mins or so.
So these filters can work, at least for me.
I have one from that brand, the Airmega 250. Definitely happy with it.
I think you have the solution already. It's to resurface or recoat the floors to get rid of the old wax smell.
Air filters will only get you so far. You'll also need a layer of charcoal filter if you go that route.
The municipalities Ive lived in have had organics collection for a couple decades now. Ive gotten in the habit of not only separately bagging organics but (space permitting) storing the bag in the freezer until collection day.
It's really helpful for small space living without much/any outdoor storage.
I've got one of these babies running : https://alpineairproducts.com/
They do work well, especially for removing musty smells or like my sweaty hockey equipment smells.
Cook, bake and brew plenty of coffee and teas. Just, always have something interesting and fragrant going on in the kitchen...
Haaa, not a bad idea. But I'm only one person who doesn't eat a lot :)
Though I am considering picking up baking as a hobby.