apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Plug up the holes. Use air conditioning. Take a 2x4 cut it the length of the door, cover it using an old rug and staple gun. Make one for each entrance and your closet doors. Slide one against the crack beneath each of your doors. (Hope this makes sense.) Remember to check out all the holes beneath your kitchen and bathroom sink. Also, it would make sense to hang sheers in front of each of your windows to catch grease that comes in when you have to have your windows open. They are easily laundered. Buy stock in Fabreeze.

Have you thought about an air purifier? I bought a large-ish one for my not-well-ventilated studio apartment to deal with oil painting fumes, and I discovered a side benefit is that I no longer have lingering cooking odor - the air is much, much more pleasant.

Here's a site with reviews on purifiers - you might check to see if they specifically address cooking odors.

How did you not notice it when you first came to see the apartment?

This is why a friend of mine will not live in a building above food services.

Well, I guess there are worse things to smell. You could just order food from them, maybe you wouldn't notice after a while. :)

Anyhow, good luck.

Matt

yikes, i cant imagine that...i cannot stand the smell of food grease in my hair, it seems like i can never get it out.

my mom is a caterer and she swears by the Lamp Berger to get rid of overpowering food smells in her house. i can't find one that suits my design taste, but it really is an amazing product...

http://www.lampeberger.com/content_howitworks.aspx

A more cost effective version of lamp berger (you don't have to buy wick nor oil), is using scented oils candle lamp that you can buy at most home furnishing places. A friend has recently moved into my place along with his dog/cat for 2 months and I've found that the scented oil candle/lamp (only 10$) helps erradicate any pet odors!

homedics makes a little machine called 'breathe'. you add essential oils and it eliminates odor, freshens, and humidifies in seconds. I just bought one at Bed Bath and Beyond. After running for a few minutes, it feels like the maid has just left. $60

You smell pizza. And the problem is...?

thank you for all the suggestions....well the smell is not so much like pizza(which may not be so bad), more just like greasy-gunk.

-I have looked into air purifiers, this one seems real promising:
http://www.rabbitair.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=3

and it has a 30 day guarantee. I have read a lot of great reviews on it at amazon. I think i am going to try it.

-i didn't notice the smell when I viewed the apartment because they were painting and the windows were open, so I really just smelled paint fumes.

-I went over last night to paint, and I bought this air neutralizer from lysol: http://lysol.com/solutionsfinder_na.shtml

It already seemed to make the air a little better.

-I also burned one of the volcano candles from anthropologie. These are the pretty potent candles they always burn in their stores....


I am going to try looking for holes, cracks etc and try to plug those up as well...that plus the air purifier and neutralizers may help a lot...but it will definately be an interesting year living in this place!

thanks ya'll!

Do you only have to live in this place for a year?

If so, that's a good thing because it will be very hard to alleviate the problem.

NYC is instituting some of the strictest policies in the country regarding restaurant exhaust. I have a feeling this restaurant has been around for a long time? Even the smallest new restaurants now are having to invest big, big, NY big money into new hood technology because of the pressure from building owners due to situations like yours.

I guess just try to make the best of it until you move. Like someone above mentioned, keep the place closed up and use the air conditioner. Burning candles and stuff may start to get kind of irritating after awhile and you may end up with a melange of french fries and sandalwood.

After smelling like chinese food for months, an air purifier took care of the apartment's smell, even for visitors who hadn't become immune to the smell.

But our clothes...we had to put cedar and other odor neutralizers in the closet. The air purifier didn't keep us from smelling like food at work somehow.

If it's any comfort, it could be worse--I lived above a nail salon for a year and it smelled like toxic chemicals all the time.

There is a great product called Zero Odor for getting smells out of fabrics and clothing - you can spray it on a litterbox and it makes it smell like nothing, at least for a little while. You can spray your clothes with it before you leave the house and it will make a big difference.

ok, here's what you do.
1. move out. or
2. locate the hood exhaust. if they have a hood, (and they should if they are cooking anything... fryer, oven, griddle) then the outlet for the exhaust should be ABOVE the roof. if not its most likely a building or zoning violation.

other than that, your only other REAL option is to pressurize your apartment. this isn't all that difficult in theory, but its expensive and definitly not worth doing as a tenant.

if i were you, i'd go with no.1 and tell the landlord its not habitable, 'give me my deposit back or see you in court'

I would go nuts constantly smelling grease (be it pizza, cheesesteaks, or chinese food)..... I can't even imagine living over a nail salon!!!

I unfortunately agree with salty_dogs. I'd leave.... primarily becuase I'd be concerned about the health consequences from constantly breathing aerosolized fat. Also from a fiscal perspective, the grease may destroy your furniture (or worse, your art) with a permanent grease film.

You may also want to file a complaint with the Health Department on the Pizza shop. The complaints can typicaly be made anonymously or confidentially . Typically Health Departments take these complaints very seriously. Many times the smell is not from equipment but an exhaust system that needs to be cleaned or a grease trap that needs to be emptied. The grease fill exhaust and water gets trapped along the exit path.
There are standards for the condition of these traps and exhausts. The smell wont ever completely go away as long as they cook food but when the paths are clean you can only smell whats cooking. Which your air purifier should be able to modify. Hope this helps.

ps the exhaust has to exit to the outside sometimes that is at the roof. Be sure there isnt exhaust passing thru your apt. or exiting close to a window.

the exhaust is on the side of the building, yet still on the first floor (and i am above it on the 2nd).

i am going to look into health codes. . .i am philly, so there may not be as strict standards as there are in new york city.

to Renee, that is kind of what I am worried about - if I am able to mask the smell in the apartment I still feel that the smell may absorb into my clothes and follow me to work...

thanks everyone for your comments!

Hi, Jane.

I know it hasn't been too long since you posted, but I would appreciate hearing if any of the solutions above have worked for you -- specifically if you bought an air filter.

A restaurant just moved into our building in New York, and our place now reeks of what sounds like the same funky, old grease smell that you have. Yuck! We're on a long lease and have been here for years, before this restaurant moved in. (It was originally a corner store.) It's only been a week, and I'm already going nuts.

The restaurant has ventilation to the roof, but odors seem to seep through the floorboards and the walls. (It's an old building.) We're trying to get the landlord to fill the cracks and provide extra ventilation, but it's moving slowly.

hi jennien,
i bought an air purifier from here - http://www.rabbitair.com/
also, i plugged up any visible holes or cracks with expandable foam.

it doesn't get rid of the smell though. i burn a lot of incense and candles. basically just mask the smell. . nothing seems to work. while i am in the apartment, i guess you get used to the smell. . it is only when i leave can i smell it. . i.e. . when i have go out of town, open my overnight bag ---- i get a whiff of deep fyer oil.

pretty much a bummer. i love my apartment though, besides the smell. i suppose i am just living with it.

good luck with yours!