apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I suffered the same issues in my NYC studio on Restaurant Row. Sadly, there was no possibility of "airing out" sufficiently.

A small fan by the bed helped, but I just learned not cook "stinky food."

oh excellent! thanks. I cook daily and my house sort of has a seasoned smell of savory goodness in general, but sometimes I'd like the fish or other not-so-fresh smelling odors to linger a lot less.

Use a fan and febreze.

I love everything about my little nyc apartment except for the fact I don't have a hood over the stove. Forget the expensive "professional" appliances. The only piece of equipment I lust over is a properly vented hood. *Sigh*

My mom just taught me the vinegar in a cup trick over the holidays. Genius!

one of those fans that have replaceable carbon filters really helps. i have this issue all the time.

I've had luck with ...
* vinegar,
* baking soda in the carpet over night,
* chai or variations thereon. I sometimes just put some herbs in a pot and boil them. Maybe orange peels. Maybe lemon. Maybe not.

But, mostly, I try to keep the fan on when I'm cooking with oil.

ozone!. and or carbon filtration. Neither are a cheep solution but used together it smells like air after a thunderstorm.

ozone is a negatively charged particle that binds to smelly elements in the air, together they become heavy enough to fall to the floor as dust.

carbon filtration sucks air through a tangled web of carbon particles trapping the smelly bits.

I use an airsource 3000 from shaklee products, and high flow carbon units can be found at hydroponic stores all over the Internet.

Lamp Berger!! It purifies the air, dissipates odor, and kills around 70% of mold and mildew spores. There are a lot of smells to choose from too

I used to have this issue in my place when I cooked steak(love it but the smell of chard beef lingers for a while) until I discovered the KOBO Soy Candles.

The "White Birch Rosemary" was super effective. Within ten minutes of burning, it eliminated, NOT just masked, the steak smell. I Highly recommend them. Their site is currently under construction but, you can find them at most candle shops.

plants!

I use a dilute solution of vinegar and water in an aromatherapy candle diffuser thingy. I *think* it works but a placebo effect is acceptable, too.

Those sound like good tricks! I've been burning candles, but I'm not sure it actually helps.

Oh thank you!
I made bacon wrapped scallops last week and now everything in my >600sqft place reeks. Open windows and candles have helped... a tiny bit. Vinegar is next!
It's specifically the fishy that's really killing me, also my leather jacket that hangs in the (exposed) hallway,

I also made a pot of rice last night in my rice cooker (part Jasmine, part brown). It seemed to have eliminated a lingering smell (of veggie chili) and replaced it with a rather pleasant sweet perfumy fragrance. I specifically thought it was one of the nicest cooking smells because it wasn't a food smell (in any typical sense).

im not guaranteeing that this will work for everyone but it did for me. if you take your coffee black, just boil it in a pot over the stove...for some reason, after doing that, my house doesn't smell like old food (meat, fish, etc)

The lemons are a great idea. Personally, I like to boil some water with some cinnamon or a pinch of mulling spices...makes the house smell like the holidays!

Vinegar's good... I put a half a lime down my garbage disposal every couple days, or a whole one on nights we cook fish.

I. Detest. Fabreze.

I swear by white vinegar. It cuts the odors rather than covering them (like a candle would). Just place a few bowls of it (until you get some prettier options!) up on the loft and near the stove. I promise it works!

Baking soda and water in a crock pot with the lid off and on low for a few hours REALLY works. My house retains food smells like crazy and I use this trick all the time.

Place a bowl of white vinegar on the stove while you're cooking and it seems to help stop the smell in the first place.

Ditto, greta. It even works with cabbage.

Maybe I should try one of these at work. My boss is very averse to food smells and everytime someone nukes their lunch, he says it smells like a dead dog.

joeshack,

i've heard so many bad things about ozone machines that i've grown fearful of using it. i agree with you about the fresh outdoors smell, but it apparently has negative health consequences.

notice how you hair and clothes smell when you fry? just as you can't air yourself out, you can't air your place out. what you need is a proper shower and scrub? what the place need is a proper wipedown, mopdown, scrub?

what about an exhaust fan/filter above the stove?? we have one installed that doesnt need a pipe taking the steam outside, but has a thick filter that we change regularly. it catches the steam and cuts down on odor in the house. they are available in home stores in germany (like home depot in the us). and aren't too expensive.

what about just cracking the window a bit and turning the heat down while you cook?

Thanks for posting this! I made curry chicken the other night & was looking for some ideas to rid my house of the smell (I love the taste but don't mind the smell while I cook & eat it but can do without it when I am finished). Thanks!

I know you said that you don't want to just add another smell, but I have heard that burning basil essential oil in an oil burner is supposed to help get rid of icky kitchen smells. I do that in my house, and it usually helps, and smells lovely and fresh. It's aromatherapy for me too. I always feel more refreshed and productive.

Just like someone else above said, the lingering smells are from the grease covering the walls, ceiling, and furniture. I can attest to this. We recently remodeled our kitchen and spent hours scrubbing it off before we could paint.

We were fortunate in that we replaced the microwave venting system (doesn't work even a little bit!) with a professional quality hood. There are big washable filters that collect the "smells", which is again, actually grease, that needs to be scrubbed from them every week or so.

Personally, I stopped cooking all smelly foods for a couple of years because I was tired of showing up to work smelling like fish curry or stir-fry.

I can't give up my spicy food! Thanks for all the tips, I'm going to try white vinegar in my teeny place. I have wall-to-wall and I think that makes the smells worse. I have left the window open while I was gone to work and that cleared things out. It was also FREEZING when I got back, but I think it was a nice trade off.

Apartments, especially when you need to keep the windows closed have some of the worst levels of air pollution - even worse than outdoors! That's without the cooking of liver and onions or sauteing filet.

The greatest contributers come from many of the comforts of our homes. They are found in the compounds in our carpet padding, cushions in our couches and chairs and in many of today's plastic and vinyl products. Think about the last time you opened that brand new shower curtain...

The culprits actually released are in a form of constant offgas as VOCs - volatile organic compounds. They also are used in some of the glues and laminates used in furniture. If you add to that airborne mold, animal dander and even the skin off you nose that collects in your pillow that dust mites feast on, well you have nasty indoor as-we-live-and-breathe air pollution.

joeshack mentioned the Air Source 3000 in his posting. It is engineered not to cover up but actually breakdown the gases via something called Photohydroionization(TM) reaction. It also attacks and reduces molds and even drops airborne dust levels. There is no cleaning of metal blades and it looks good. You need to change what is a high tech light bulb once a year for the cost using a light bulb's worth of electricity a day.

I've used them for years and knowing just how well they work I started selling them. If you have any questions or like to just know more about it let me know. - BetterWellness@comcast.net

Ozone is dangerous in very high levels, but its used extensively in hospitals, gyms and restaurants to kill airborne germs. You can smell when its prevalent, I just open the window and let it free.

Geeze, is that wooden place really yours? Maybe all you need to do is sand the walls and the smell of fresh wood will overpower anything else...

You make creme brulee? Can I live with you? ;^)