Sometimes things just smell old. There's no two ways around it. If you're a vintage or thrift shopper, then chances are you've come across this in the past. Baking soda has been known to do the trick for upholstery, but what about items that aren't made from fabric? Check out this simple trick!
Do you have a treasure that smells a little musty? Well Karen from The Art Of Doing Stuff has a great solution. It's simple and easy and might be just what you're in need of!
Karen suggests filling your item with kitty litter and letting it sit for one week untouched. Likewise you could also fill a small plastic tub or tote container with litter and submerge an item if it wasn't able to be filled. The litter sucks up the smell and like magic you're good to go.
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fresh coffee grounds work too and don't smell like kitty litter.
quarter an onion, place it with the item in, say, a plastic bag or other enclosure. Let sit for a day or two. The sulphur compounds in the onion kill any organic material causing a bad odor.
This also works for sticky stuff. I inherited a server with interior drawers. One had a plastic place mat in it. When I pulled up the mat, the entire bottom of the drawer was sticky. I poured fresh kitty litter into the drawer, and it soaked up the goo.
OFF TOPIC: Kinda of. I have a terrace with a discolored concrete floor. I was too lazy to stain it, so I tried putting Resolve Carpet Cleaner on the spots. It ABSORBED the stains. I could not believe it. It takes more than one application. I let rain storms clean off the residual, and then I powder the spots again. It's just amazing.
Stephy - do you put the coffee grounds directly on the item (like they are showing with the kitty litter above)? Or do you put it in a container and it absorbs the smells?
Just make sure to leave that suitcase closed and out of reach from kitty...or you might have an even larger smell to deal with.
Stephy - I'm not sure what kind of kitty litter you're using, but kitty litter has no scent to it. You *can* buy scented litter, but that's not what I'm recommending you use. I should also say, just so everyone knows ... I never, ever recommend anything I haven't personally done myself and KNOW works. There's enough of that out in blog land, I figure. So give it a shot. Works. ~ karen!
Does it work on books?
Baking soda, kitty litter,coffee grounds....they ALL work to some degree..as does vinegar and also newspaper. Depends on the material one is attempting to deodorize. If one doesn't work, I move on to the next. Haven't been disappointed yet :)
The best technique I've found is sunshine. The UV rays help disinfect it and it just ends up working like magic. I had a pair of shoes that I took to London, wore in the rain, then packed back in a little plastic bag and forgot about. Two weeks later I remembered them, and they were starting to mold and smelled like the heaviest old must, it was disgusting. I left them on my south-facing window sill in the sun for a couple days until I could actually deal with cleaning them, and by the time I got around to checking on them they were good as new again (or, almost; it didn't fix the fact that they were still beat up old shoes). Magic!
@ HOLLER: Ha! How did I overlook sunshine? It's the BEST solution, by far.
Yeah, but then you're item smells like kitty litter, which is probably one of the most offensive smells I know. Sunshine is my favorite. But if you're in a hurry, a bowl of water with a smidge of vinegar works great. The vinegar smell dissipates completely in roughly an hour if you don't mix it too strongly.
After cleaning really well with the appropriate product like baking soda, vinegar, borax, or depending if its fabric then maybe just dish soap. I swear by making a spray or clove oil and water it disinfects and cleans off mold or mildew.
I have an old bookcase that smells of old. I'm wondering if kitty litter or sunshine will do the trick?
How about cedar chips? It will smell like pine and repel moths.
OT, kitty litter also soaks up driveway car leaks.
Charcoal.
@TESS3: for books use cornstarch, it's a trick that restorers use, heavily dust the book with cornstarch and set it in a sealed container for a few days. Then I take the book out, dust it off (outdoors), and put it back in the now-cleaned container with charcoal (actual charcoal not bbq briquettes) for another couple days.
@Tess3: I recently used the kitty litter trick on several books and threw in some lavender-scented dryer sheets as well. The books came out smelling vaguely of lavender and no longer had a musty/mildew smell.
this is terrifyingly awesome.
Thank you for this tip. So often I overlook thrifted pieces because the musty old smell makes me violently ill. I've had good luck with vinegar on some things that have gotten fusty smelling, but hadn't thought to try other solutions. I love that many are low cost and things I have around the house...well except kitty litter.
Kitty litter won't go bad. Given space to store it, one bag can be all you need to buy for a long time. That makes it even cheaper in the long run.
Hmm. I'll have to try some of these ideas. I've had no success in the past....
Please be careful when using sunshine as it can bleach and discolor some things, especially those with fabric covers or upholstery.
I have a credenza that s-t-i-n-k-s!
Have no clue how to get it out. Have tried litter, crumpled up newspapers, looks like the person before me tried some paint...
Don't know where it'll end up. I'm looking for a new one...
Be careful using the kitty litter on the driveway. If it rains, it turns into an awful mush and gets tracked inside----- from experience! Otherwise, it DOES absorb the grease from the driveway.