apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

"Or place a teaspoon or two of the ground spices on a cookie sheet and place it in a 200°F (93°C) oven with the door ajar for 30 minutes."

This seems like an egregious waste of energy.

Vinegar is unbelievably effective, especially in the kitchen.

what about cat smells? I hate the smell of litter - the actual clean product - and when it's not so clean, it smells even worse. I wanted to go get those bags of volcanic rock and put a few in each room - but I am partial to some of those fakey scents.

Also - what about scents in the workplace? This office has acquired a funk and I dont want to bring in one of those plug ins because I don't want to assault other pple's senses. Any thing that smells great, naturally, that won't offend other people's noses?

Ditto on the vinegar - leave it out overnight in the office, chusmabilly, and it should be gone by morning. This got rid of a curry smell, which usually lasts days in my apartment!

I actually prefer burning candles (Cinnamon is the current favorite) to erase any scents, although it doesnt work too well for stubborn ones. Does give the place a nice aroma though!

-Ruth

Activated charcoal. Best deodorizer ever. Works like baking soda in your fridge, but more effective. I bought a huge bottle at the aquarium store and put it in fine mesh bags by the cat box and in the fridge and it has helped immensely. And chusmabilly, I hate the "chemical toilet" smell of clean cat litter too. I switched to unscented feline pine scoop, and it is much better! Smells like sawdust instead of nasty fake "clean".

The first line of defence is opening a few windows, which usually works a treat for me...

The only lingering odours that I have ever had trouble with -- curry and fish -- I find are helped by carefully wiping down surfaces (usually it is a case of tiny dots of splattered oils) and adding 1 or 2 cut lemons into a pot of boiling water. Simmering that for a while really helps.

Same thing for getting odours out of the microwave -- put a cut lemon in a bowl of water, and set it to boil, leave inside for 10 minutes or so, and then wipe down.

i have that activated volcano charcoal rocky mesh bag stuff. i haven't noticed it doing much, but i also have LOTS of air freshener things, too. i've got a bunch of odor absorbers, a few glade things, some other "fresh cotton" things too. i have a small army of destinkers near the litter box. and i do not apologize for it!

That photo of a close up scrunched face is gross. Bad choice.

Fresh coffee grounds. My electricity was out for two weeks after Hurricane Ike. My fridge had a funky smell. The coffee grounds really helped. It also helped with a cabinet that had a musty smell from water damage.

chusmabilly, I take a multi-step approach to cat litter. I have a covered litter box, one of those ones that empties itself, to try to trap odors inside. I use a baking-soda product made to deodorize litter boxes, and I pour that into the "catching" tray when I clean out the litter box. I buy that at Petco near the litter section, but you can probably get it in a lot of different places. Or you can just use plain baking soda, which I do sometimes too.

I'm also a big fan of the Bad Air Sponge, so I often have one tucked in that corner, near both the cat litter and the trash can. http://www.amazon.com/Original-Bad-Sponge-Odor-Neutralant/dp/B001SBMLAM/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1236615477&sr=8-6

Finally, I sometimes make a little potpourri sachet from a recipe I got from this British house-cleaning show about an animal-lover: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blE6FpVIyxw

I either tack the potpourri to the wall near the litter box, or sometimes I just put it on a surface near the box, or whatever. It's a really mild scent but it absorbs/covers up the litter I would often smell when I'm in that corner of the apartment. Now the only time I smell anything is when I'm cleaning the litter tray.

Baking some bread has to be at the top of the list (bread machines make this easy and you can eat the results!) Next up, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg simmering in water in a tea kettle. Add a cut up apple and your house will smell irresistable; and when it's over, just dump the tea kettle out into the garden somewhere, totally biodegradable! Baking brownies or toll house cookies is wonderful too.

Best airt freshener: 1) open windows 2) clean the place.

Coffee grounds and vinegar (err, not together) work really well. Also I agree open the windows and wash up is the best cleaner. Please please don't use air poisoners.

what do you do with the coffee grounds?
and for the orange pomander -- will it not rot/mold?

The orange dries before it molds, but it doesn't do squat for moths. Nor will it smell good for years (who writes this stuff, anyway?)

Whole cloves in boiling water make the place smell like cloves on top of whatever smelled bad before. The nice smell doesn't push out the bad smell. Same with the lemon peel (and you need to burn dried ones which take a good two weeks to dry up).

Several bowls of vinegar? Gallons, quarts or what?

I wish AT bloggers would actually try this stuff out rather than just copying from other sources.

Today I put vinegar in my apartment so I can be the guinea pig.

I tried:

1/2 cup in the freezer.
1/2 cup in the fridge.

Baking Soda just wasn't doing the trick for a fridge that had been turned up accidentally and so the food wasn't as fresh as it should be. I scrubbed the whole fridge and the smell still lingered. The vinegar has made a definite improvement, and I only put it there a few hours ago. I just put it in little tupperware bowls. I'll see how it does overnight and then I'll return.


Ps. I despise the smell of cloves, it makes me sick.

FYI, don't use baking soda in gerbil litter. Rodents can't burp and will die if they ingest it. My family learned this the hard way. Lennie and Squiggy were buried in the iris bed.