That’s what I say to my mom when she comes to visit and I press my nose to something she brought from her house. It’s not meant as an insult, but more of an olfactory observation. Everyone’s house has a certain smell to it. What kind of smell it is differs from home to home.
I dated a guy in high school whose mom was a clean freak. Every corner of their house reeked of Lysol. I guess you at least knew it was clean. I once looked at a house for sale that smelled like a giant mothball. Stepping across the threshold of that house felt like being slammed directly in the snoot by a wrecking ball made of a million mothballs. I don’t think the house ever sold. No big mystery there.
The oh-so-lovely Jennifer over at Take2Mommy wrote about house scents last Friday, and I felt compelled to talk about my house.
And its smell.
Er, scent.
Smell would imply that it’s less than pleasing to your nose holes.
Which it isn’t.
I hope.
[Sidebar: For about three days after I cook fish, Mr. Wombat comes home from work declaring the place stinks of fish. At that point, I no longer smell it. Perhaps I should take that as a directive to get out of the house more. Or find a better way to clear the fishy air.]
I run around like a Supermarket Sweep contestant prior to entertaining guests (I’ll also note for the record that people don’t come over very often for this reason). My daily clutter level would make Martha Stewart’s blonde bob spin, so prepping for visitors is no small task around here.
Much like Jennifer, one thing I worry about is the smell of my house. We all know our house has a smell scent, but unless it’s something pungent like last night’s chicken dinner scraps brewing in the kitchen trash, we don’t really know what everyone else smells when they walk through our front door.
At Chez Wombat, Schmoopy sleeps fairly near the front door. The wall-to-wall carpeting surrounding her orthopedic old lady bed is her own personal towel on which she can roll and writhe to rid her fur of any moisture or mud collected during her outdoor rolling and writhing exercises. It’s also quite effective at ridding her fur of extra fur.
I vacuum this area thoroughly in an attempt to eliminate any dog hair or evidence of the great outdoors. Sometimes I sprinkle baking soda on it first and let it sit. After I vacuum, I feel the need to cover up the smell of “dog fur that’s been in the vacuum cleaner bag for far too long.” If you own a dog and a vacuum, you and your nose are familiar with this smell that fills the air as soon as you press the “on” button.
This is definitely not the smell you wish visitors to identify as your “house scent.”
Enter the freshening routine.
Even if it’s tundra cold out, I always try to get a little fresh air in here. Then I light the candle under my scented oil burner and let it work in a couple rooms for a few minutes each. I use mandarin orange oil, since it’s such a sweet, fresh smell. Sometimes we’ll even put a little grapefruit or orange rind down the disposal to disperse even more citrusy goodness into the air. I try to use natural smells to freshen up the house. I know someone who used to simmer cinnamon sticks and spices on the stove and it smelled wonderful!
Sometimes your house scent tags along with you like the kid brother you were always trying to shake. After cooking something like fish, bacon, or sausage, I fear that everyone standing near me in line can smell it, too. These lingering odors call for extra airing out and freshening. Pronto.
Maybe you enjoy smelling like it, but haven't cooked bacon today.
The only thing worse than having a doggy smell problem or bacon-infused home is the unfortunate (albeit adorable) combination of the two:
Source
What about you? Do you do anything special to enhance the scent of your abode?
From Zannah:
I learned the hard way not to saute scallops in the house. Couldn’t lose that smell for three days. Now I’ll only grill them. OUTside. But yeah, I worry about the doggie smell, too. We rarely have people over, so it’s not that big a deal. I fight it with open windows, usually. And Murphy’s Oil Soap on the floor. And Windex on the windows. I tried plug-in air fresheners, but they were either too strong or not strong enough. I might try something warm on the oven soon.
Zannah recently posted..My not very well thought out review of The Hunger Games
From Wombat Central:
I was at a fabric store looking for material to make kitchen curtains years ago, and the sales person screwed up his face when I told him I was looking for something that was machine washable–”Why would you wash your curtains?!” “Well, I replied,” totally setting aside the fact that I wash mine at least with the change of seasons for general cleanliness, “I’d want to wash them if I fried chicken or cooked fish.” His response: “That’s what Kentucky Fried Chicken and Red Lobster are for!”
From Missy | The Literal Mom:
Dude, seriously. It takes forever to get the smell of bacon out of the house.
Missy | The Literal Mom recently posted..Bring the Clean (Living, that is) in 2012 – Week 4 – 80/20 living
From Wombat Central:
I always feel like white trash when I’m bacon hair girl.
From Karyn Climans:
Can’t stop laughing over the photo of the dog with the fried egg & bacon strips!
My house definitely smells like dog! Especially after a walk in the rain (like yesterday) when the dogs and I came home looking like drowned rats and smelling much worse. I also know my house reeks of garlic after I’ve been cooking certain meals because my husband will arrive home from work and announce that he could smell the garlic on the front driveway. Not a bad smell in my opinion.
Thank goodness I have a wonderful housekeeper who arrives every Friday morning because otherwise my house would smell much worse. Goodness knows what I’ll do if she ever retires.
Karyn Climans recently posted..Extreme Sports
From Wombat Central:
Ooh, garlic is a wonderful smell! There is NO smell like wet dog (and for good reason!). ;D
From TILTE:
I hope and pray that our house isn’t TOO pet-smelly. Biscuit is an indoor dog, she gets a bath about once a month, and I throw her blankets and toys into the wash pretty regularly. Despite all my efforts, I know there’s essence of dog.
Every weekend, we do a house cleaning. And when we have guests, it goes into overdrive. Windows open, throw blankets and bed linens laundered, dishes washed, and a fruity candle on in the living room. I’m not a fan of the overly perfumed scents (or anything sticky sweet, like vanilla or brown sugar), so we usually use something orange or lemony too.
Seems like our de-scenting routines are pretty similar!
TILTE recently posted..I Take a Picture of Almost Everything I Eat.
From Wombat Central:
Schmoopy usually gets an outdoor bath, so in the winter months, she doesn’t get one as often–it’s tough to get her in and out of the tub these days. Luckily, she does roll in the snow a lot. ;P
From Amber:
I usually have a candle going so my home either smells like that, or whatever is cooking in the crockpot if I decide to use it that day.
Amber recently posted..100 Days of School
From Wombat Central:
Nothing better than a yummy dinner smell. Well, unless it’s bacon that you made three days ago….
From Jen {at} take2mommy:
I’m now convinced you’re my twin, separated at birth.
I knew you would relate!
Even though I can’t tell what my house smells like, I’ll bet a thousand bucks it’s dog-fur-that’s-been-in-the-vacuum-cleaner-bag-for-too-long smell.
Jen {at} take2mommy recently posted..Lessons of the City
From Wombat Central:
*runs to change vacuum bag*
From Grace Goldragon:
Having two small children, and two indoor cats who’s litterbox doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should, my house smells like pee. We don’t notice it, until we leave for a time, and come back. We come into the house wrinkling our noses and sniffing, and saying, “why does the house smell like pee?” And then after a bit of being home we don’t notice it anymore, and then I get mortified as I realize that pee is what our house smells all the time, we’re just used to it. Thankfully we don’t have many house guests. No one comes more than once…
From Wombat Central:
Yeah–it’s never until you actually get out of the house (and into fresh air!) that you come back and get a sense for what other people are smelling when they enter your house. Crap. I gotta go clean.
From If By Yes:
I think my house smells like musty yuck.
If By Yes recently posted..30 Years in 30 Seconds