Nothing beats fresh air and we try to open the windows as often as possible - even in the winter we'll open the front door which allows a little fresh air to seep in since the storm door isn't airtight. I've never been one to burn scented candles or add oils to my home. It just seems that they only temporarily mask whatever odor is objectionable. We installed an Air Scrubber to our HVAC system which is supposed to reduce contaminants and improve air quality. It has really helped DH's allergies, he no longer wakes up in the morning with puffy eyes.

I've had good success with leaving bowls of vinegar in the basement. You do have to top them up regularly and, with pets, find locations for them where they won't get tipped over. However, Olychick's suggestion has me keenly interested. Less dusting, you say? Sign me up!

We live in an older home with oak floors and oak woodwork thruout. Also several large pieces of oak furniture. Maybe we're doomed to be smelly forever.

Aok, our house is also 40 years old and starting to smell it's age. :) I'll get a tee shirt out to wear around the house and I had to spray it with Febreeze until I bought sachets.

For the time being I'm going to use some Sweet Orange essential oil on the H&A filters to see how well that works, a low dose though. If it's not strong enough I'll set a diffuser out but I always forget to flip the sticks.

Oly, I think those purifiers are what my son put in his house for Covid, one upstairs, one down. I'm going to check into those, just a smaller size for the LR which is where most of the smell is when it appears.

Yeo, we have two giant dogs and I could bathe them every day and they'd still go outside and roll around. Their summer stink is the worst but they don't smell every day. I used to babysit my late granddogs, two Shih Tzus and boy did they smell in the summer. Much worse than our two. We had their anal glands popped when they were groomed. Are those the glands you're talking about?

I am going through the same. To be honest, I know it is my furniture.

I have a second home in Florida. Newly furnished and no odors when you walk in the door.

Up north, my furniture is all over 20 years old. On to our second dog that goes on all the furniture.

I will be replacing the upholstered pieces. I also have industrial carpet that still looks fine but is as old as the furniture. I want to replace that too but with LVP.

Oakley, I too have looked into this and this is my conclusion for my house.

I have a house full of oak and it doesn’t smell. Your wood floor should be sealed so I can’t imagine it smelling. I second the purifying filters. I use them as I have a mold allergy (and yes, they help with dust too!) I would guess your dogs could be the problem. Odor can be absorbed by upholstered furniture, drapes, and carpet can be really bad, especially if it’s old. Having those items professionally cleaned might help. The little bags of charcoal are supposed to help but I’ve never tried them. It’s not charcoal you would use in a grill. And yes, fresh air. We warm up again this week, so I may air our house out for a bit.

My kitchen is still oak and most of my furniture is antique wood and it does not have a distinct odor but I do keep charcoal bags in closets, basement and cupboards. I buy cute linen small bags from Amazon. I also use pure hepa air purifiers throughout the house. I prefer Honeywell to other brands. Though more money upfront replacement filters are cheaper and readily available. They emit zero ozone and are hospital grade.

I find perfume candles, potpourri and air fresheners very irritating and honestly associate it with an older generation but I have severe allergies. I use a steam cleaner on throw rugs and upholstered furniture every three to six months and wash curtains at this time as well. Fabrics hold so much odor. Weekly, I Vacuum curtains and upholstery. And I leave my air purifiers on low 24/7 and put them on turbo when I clean.

Tina I was typing before I read your post. Great minds think alike!

I know exactly what you mean. I think some of us may be more sensitive to the smell than others, but dog odor is definitely a thing, no matter how much you vacuum or how much you bathe your dog. I started using these a few months ago, and I can't really figure out why, but of all my wax melts, they DO seem to do the best job. Since my wax melter is simply a small bulb (Christmas tree size), I just leave it plugged in and so it runs all the time -much like a nightlight would. I put the entire wax melt in at once, and get a good few weeks out of it. I subscribe to the 'track the odor down and eliminate' school of thought, but that just doesn't seem entirely possible when you live with a dog, at least to my sensitive nose. These melts are the one thing that seems to truly work over time, although of course I continue to bathe Savannah as frequently as I'm allowed and to clean up any messes as they occur.

Pet Odor Wax Melts

The suggestion of bowls of vinegar reminds me of a trick that my MIL had - she would put out small bowls of vanilla. I used the vanilla when my kids were little and did smelly things like vomit in their room. It really worked.

Be careful with pets with vanilla in bowls it is often made with alcohol and can cause renal and liver issues for pets if ingested.

Yes I meant anal glands. When I wrote that I didn't even realize that it completely skipped the word anal. Probably not PC enough for them. :-)..

My vet has an in house groomer and that's where we take them.

I dry wash them with the towel because yes they go outside and roll around and that's the end of any clean-ness. It does seem to make a huge difference to get to them briskly rubbed down while they're slightly outside damp.

I used to have one 100 lb all muscle dog. Now my biggest dog is only 67 lb.

I bought my vanilla from the health food store and it has no alcohol. I think if you look around you could find one without any alcohol in it.

I think it's good practice to note what you smell when you first walk into your house. Its easy to get inured to it, Our house still has a faint paint smell. When it is damp, it smells a bit smokey from the fireplace. If i have guests, I try to make sure there will be pleasant food smells.

The first thing to do is replace or clean anything fabric. This includes your clothes. Older people tend to have clothes hanging for years, unused, and they create an odor - one more reason to purge. Antique furniture and books can also smell. Some things just have to go, other can be cleaned.

I don't care for anything that adds scent; it just becomes one more element in the olfactory stew. I say find the source and fix it, and then, if you enjoy it, add scent to a room. But get rid of the bad stuff first.

Especially older homes. Sometimes the funk just happens. I have been known to put a drop or two of eucalyptus oil down a furnace register from time to time. As others say tho, it's just a cover-up.

I just open a few windows most of the time. I do use baking soda on the rugs occasionally, because we have brick floors, lots of Oriental-type rugs and 2 dogs. I tried the scented baking soda stuff made for rugs once and it was horribly strong! Awful! I’m paranoid of using scented oils, etc., because I don’t want to inhale them into my lungs. The only place I keep any spray air freshener is in our bathrooms.

Lynn I am so with you on inhaling stuff! And think of our pets - they breathe the stuff too! We don't use air freshener sprays and I'm very careful about the cleaners I use. I will occasionally use my essential oil diffuser - very light on the oil.

It's the living room that gets the odor, and it's not really an old people odor. Maybe it's a stuffy smell? I only notice it when we come home after being gone a few hours and many times it smells fine. Today there was no odor at all, probably because it wasn't humid, even with snow everywhere.

Also, the whole front of the house is relatively new, ten years old. The bedrooms are 40, and of course the newish wood floors are sealed. And they are kept clean by moi except for today, if you saw my other topic.

The only upholstered furniture in the LR is the ten year old sofa which the dogs lay on if no one else is there, and one wing back which has a blanket on the seat which a cat lays on.

Oak is a pourous wood and will absorb every smell there is, especially in the drawers. I really need to wash the insides.

I keep the beadboard and wood shutters pretty clean...most of the time. Dust buildup will smell, especially on our shutters because of living in the country. Humidity and dust are a bad combination.

I personally like a lightly scented home, so I don't want to argue about what we're inhaling. I would never buy anything that has certain chemicals in it. On the mantel is where I keep a wax melt burner with lightly scented wax.

Today I ordered Sweet Orange essential oil, 100% natural. I just want a light light scent because I too have allergies and asthma.

The wood chairs and tables do need washed so maybe that's an odorous area? The dogs will rest their heads on an end table and I'll find drool spots. But I do love them.

Speaking of dogs, I don't know why I forgot about spray on shampoo for dogs that doesn't have be be washed off, just a rub with a towel like Yeo said. I used it forever then it completely slipped my mind when I ran out of it. No scent in the shampoo which is great.

Lynn, I'm a big fan of open windows and we open them quite a bit if the weather's good. But never during high humidity which is on it's way come April.

This is similar to the storm door in the LR and it has a top retractable screen which really comes in handy. Cranberry with a brass kick plate. I couldn't have a front door that I can't see out of. The wood door is mahogany so the storm door isn't that noticeable.

If you remember my sofa topic, the current sofa will be replaced once Covid is over.

I've used bowls of vinegar, too, when I had an elderly dog. It worked, and much better than anything I tried to mask the scent.

I'm very sensitive to scents. I recently moved, and while the previous owners left this home very clean, it still had traces of their old products, even after I wiped down every surface with my own cleaning products. A few weeks ago, I had the house painted, and now I no longer smell their scent. But I recommend the vinegar approach.

FWIW, I have a dehumidifier that I run when the humidity gets high, but it's too cool to run the A/C, and it makes the house smell very fresh.

High humidity definitely brings out odors, IMPE.

I was all eyes on this thread as we have an old home with many wood walls and we are on slab. A new to us contractor came in our home for the first time once and took a deep breath and said, "ahh, the smell of a slab home". (I thought to myself, well, you did not get the job Mr Bigshot) I used to scrub the wood paneling several times a year with oil wood soap because of 50 years of indoor smoking inside our house before we bought it. People would sniff, and say, it smells like cheap motel in here. Hangs head in shame. It always smell like dirty ashtray :(. The smell never went away. I painted some rooms that have wood paneling and that helped to seal the odor in in those rooms, but we are still on slab, so it smells, well...earthy. We also don't have forced air heat/hvac, so no air circulation with windows closed. Ugh. Plus, in the woods and I still can't get used to amount of dirt and grit that seems to permeate inside. It's a struggle. Add pets and people and cooking, yeah, I was all eyes on this thread! :) I could try a small tray of vanilla. Thanks for the tip. When I put a new vacuum bag in, I sprinkle essential oils on it and that is nice for a few moments. I used to simmer cinnamon sticks and orange peels a couple times a year, but really it doesn't help beyond that moment in time. We can open windows four months a year, and that helps somewhat. We use incense a few times a week, but I do wonder if that is harmful to use. It's all temporary anyways.

Get an air purifier, shown above. It will help.

If you buy one at Costco and it doesn't do the trick, they have a very generous return policy.

I occasionally worry about being nose blind about our house. Especially since it's just the two of us in here almost 24/7. Does anyone have hints or observations about how to tell if your house is gross but your nose is just used to the smell?

It's the living room that gets the odor, and it's not really an old people odor. Maybe it's a stuffy smell? I only notice it when we come home after being gone a few hours and many times it smells fine. Today there was no odor at all, probably because it wasn't humid, even with snow everywhere.

TBH Oakley, your house almost certainly always has the odor, you just don't smell it when you are inside and surrounded by the atmosphere as witnessed by your comment that you only notice it when you've been away a few hours.

Also, by and large unless you get the dogs out of the house, your house is gonna smell. As noted the vast majority of dogs have a scent that's noticeable and of course most owners understandably allow dogs to spend a lot of time on upholstered furniture not to mention carpets etc, all of which hold odors and are not that easy to clean regularly.

Well, when I came home last night after half a day away - the house smelled like apples going bad. Not the worst in the way of smells, but I notice one can acclimatize to how a house smells if you don't get out much any more (for whatever viral reasons).

As winter wears on and windows don't get open all that often, I notice by the end of it just about every year there's a bit of a stale nuance - basically again only noticed if one steps out and comes back in some hours later.

So I guess the best way to tell about nose blindness is to get out for a bit. And for me to observe the fruit in the pantry, or the state of the kitty boxes in the basement.

For bathrooms - I have a scented candle available. I also leave a book of matches for guests (whatever those are), in case they want to just light a match.

Baking soda helps with cat yak and other things on fabric, plus keeping that box in the fridge is also useful.

Every morning when I open a can of cat food, I go "Yech", and then am grateful I CAN smell it - I'd worry about COVID if I didn't!

Something else that sometimes gets overlooked is kitchen trash. It's amazing how emptying it can make a big difference, IMPE.

Not leaving pet food out makes a difference too.

And I have an unscented Febreze that works pretty well on fabrics, curtains and carpets.

There are also enzyme based products made specifically for pet odors.

Sea salt, I found my finish basement smells so much better with a purifier on low 24/7 it not only help get rid of the slab smell but it is where my litter boxes are and I have less litter scent and dust. It really helped us in my 100 year old house. Some purifiers come with essential oil pads by the fan where you drop a few drops of essential oil and the fan disperses it around the room.

Just be careful with diffusing essential oils around pets. Some can be quite toxic.

I remember using some Peppermint oil in a closet where we had a mouse die inside the closet wall years ago. It worked wonders.

My dog does not shed or smell and gets groomed each month, so I am lucky there.

I buy the Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille candles for my house. I like masculine smells for some reason and love cigar smell. It's not over empowering and I like to smell just a hint of it.

@Bestyears you are correct and I should have added that in my comment. It's just the two of us now.

Running, when I said "today there was no odor," it was after I'd been outside for a long time in the greenhouse, while the house was completely shut. I made a point to smell the LR and I smelled nothing. Same today except when I walked in DH's office I got a whiff of dog smells because the dogs love to lay on the rug at his feet.

Ollie, vanilla is one of my favorite scents.

The oil I ordered is Sweet Orange and I swear I read all I could on it before I ordered it. This is what I found a few minutes ago.

"Are diffusers bad for pets?

Many essential oils, such as eucalyptus oil, tea tree oil, cinnamon, citrus, peppermint, pine, wintergreen, and ylang ylang are straight up toxic to pets. These are toxic whether they are applied to the skin, used in diffusers or licked up in the case of a spill.Mar 2, 2020"

Great.

If you google Sweet Orange essential oil for pets, it seems that it is safe and can even be used on their skin. I think the ones you listed above are the ones to stay away from.

https://healthyhomemadedogtreats.com/is-orange-essential-oil-safe-for-dogs/

There are whole home scent units which attach to your furnace blower.

Isn't scenting a home that has funky smells just going to fill it with scented funky smells?

Oly, lol. I don't use funky smells. I've used some before and I immediately got rid of it. Again, as I said the smell isn't there fulltime, I just want a very lightly scented home 24/7.

I have to tell you this embarrassing and humiliating story. I thought I was going to die. I was visiting my old BFF from high school who is an interior decorator that I hadn't seen in 30 years. Her home was partly decorated by Charles Faudree who was a friend of hers. Both lived in Tulsa. CF passed away a few years ago.

Her house was magazine worthy. While I was there I called my DIL to tell her all about it because we both love dedcorating. She and DS1 had to go to our house the next day...my husband was there, and she volunteered to make sure it's still clean like I left it because I knew my friend would see the house. I was kind of house proud at the time, not so much after I saw my friend's house. :)

I was so grateful for my DIL and all she did. The house was super clean and picked up when we arrived. Except the minute we walked in the front door an overpowering scent of raw fish filled the room. Seriously, fish? FISH?? DH fed them fish for lunch and the thought of making sure the house smelled good didn't even cross my mind.

This morning I found an easy recipe for using EO and if it works I'm going to put a little jar in each room. The oil arrives Wednesday and the jar is ready to go.

1/2 cup Baking Soda and about ten drops of oil, but I am NOT using that much oil unless it's needed.

The top is decorative paper with lots of little poked holes. Took five minutes to make.

I just tried this Oly with 1/4 cup baking soda and about 16 drops essential lavender oil. The phone rang as I was putting in my oil and I accidentally overdid it. I put it in an empty pill vial and it definitely gives a nice smell. I left the top off and put in my small powder room next to kitchen,

i am in kitchen and can smell it for now.

thanks for the tip, we will see how long it lasts.

Lyban, same thing happened to me today after my oil arrived. It's not giving off a scent in the kitchen from the little jar, but I only used 8 drops, so I'll add a bit more.

I wanted Lavender but we grow a ton of it each year and I've decided l like the scent better when it's mixed with something. Right now I'm using Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day multi surface cleaner for cleaning the granite and I love how it smells. Bluebell scent but it also has lavender and citrus.

While adding some oil to a wooden clothespin I knocked over the bottle but it just left a big spot on a paper towel, which got on my hands.

Tonight I'm going to get out my old diffuser glass jars and see what I can do. Probably make a huge mess!

DH and the dogs are sleeping and it's the best time for me to piddle.

"I think Oly means covering up funky smells, not that the oil you will be using is funky!"

Yes, exactly what I meant. If your house smells funky, trying to cover it up with scent is not going to get rid of the funk. You're just going to have scented funk. I'd rather figure out how to have it smell clean than have everything scented try to hide the fact that something isn't clean.

Oly,

my experience like yours with baking soda worked for about 2 days. I left the little jar of baking soda and lavender oil drops in my powder room. I smelled it immediately but not overpowering. The next day my daughter was here she said she could smell it lightly.

the following day she was back to deliver something to me and said there was no smell in the powder room.

so again maybe good for a night you are having visitors but not lasting enough For any other purpose.

Glad this topic popped up again. I found out how to get rid of the dog smell. Vacuum. :) Both dogs shed quite a bit and I'm not one to vacuum every day, but I will dry mop the floors. A few months ago when it was warm the dog smell in the LR where the big rug is was horrible. It needed vacuuming anyway and when I was finished, the smell was gone. It was in their shedded hair. A touch of Febreeze to finish it off. That simple.

We have our furniture steam cleaned every six months. The guy does a marvellous job using steam only. Our two dogs are groomed weekly and thankfully, because we take these preventive measures, our house does not have any smells except when i am cooking.

I think a big part of reducing odours when you have dogs is grooming them as said above. I find keeping my large and medium dogs groomed makes a big difference even with dogs that don't shed as much. Mine are poodle crosses.

I think a big part of reducing odours when you have dogs is grooming them as said above. I find keeping my large and medium dogs groomed makes a big difference even with dogs that don't shed as much. Mine are poodle crossesI use a thinning brush also a regular brush as well as vacuuming them. Keeping them groomed helps keeps the place fresh and if I squint dog fur free. Well as close as I can get to that :-). :)

I agree with grooming! I also think, most bones are stinky and could add to a stinky dog house. I have bought them once or twice and the smell was awful. I now only buy the odor-free ones, that are expensive-but I cannot have a stinky dog house. No way. Every night, my mini goldendoodle climbs in my lap and I help hold his bone for him. He is so spoiled. How can you love a dog so much??

not just grooming, but dental health too. dogs that haven't had their teeth professionally cleaned in a while can stink up a whole room.

no to air fresheners but I find that natural oils such as lavender, citrus, woody scents are ok when used lightly.

look into air purifying equipment and good ventilation. run your hvac on "fan" when it's not heating or cooling. it would be easier if you had fewer rugs and furniture that's not absorbent -- like leather (or drape blankets where the dogs sit).

I do groom my dogs, thank you very much.

Seattle, it's not like I need a fumigator or anything.

As I said above, the problem is solved. I just need to vacuum the rugs more often. We live in the country, they boy romp and run, find old cow bones & hides, and well, they're DOGS. Happy and mostly clean dogs.

Playing with a cow hide. They're almost twice the size now.

Buy a Roomba and use it every day, odor will disappear.

Oakley, I’m glad you got your big dog odor taken care of. When I was reading your notes I thought that maybe you had retrievers. I used to have a lab and they and other working dogs of the retriever variety are likely to smell a bit doggy because of the oil in their coat.

Yes it is important to keep up with vacuuming because they shed a lot. You’ll also want to keep your vacuum cleaner emptied because the oily doggy smell can make that reek Recirculate doggy odor, even if you have replaceable bags. The filter was some part of the apparatus gets dusty with dog fragrance. (We have an in-house vac, so the canister is in the garage, so not a problem.)

If you have wool or similar fiber carpeting, this can become “doggy” because the oil from the retrievers get onto the fibers. We had friends with golden retrievers and they had large sisal carpets and their home did not smell of their dogs. They were good housekeepers but not fastidious. They were dog lovers and the guy was a duck hunter so his dogs were not roomed often. (With retriever, the oil on their skin that gets into their hair helps keep them warm and buoyant, I believe.)

One thing I found that’s a nice fragrance is close. Somehow to scape day project and we’re apparently in my sewing room. It took me a while to figure out where the nice thing clothes smell was coming from until I spotted a few loose clothes. Now I replace them every now and then just a few and it gives a light variable fragrance To that room.

As others have suggested, and you said you do this, refresh the air as often as possible by opening the doors and windows and letting a lot of sunlight come in. Be thankful your pups are rolling in rotted seaweed or lobster bait.

Your dogs are beautiful!