Everyone wants to walk into their home and smell the fresh, clean scent. Unfortunately, that's not always what we get, and it is for many different reasons. Does your home have a particular funky smell that you can't seem to get rid of? Maybe you just fried up some fresh fish or have a cat or two for pets, and their litterbox stinks up the whole house? Or perhaps it could be something else entirely that you can't seem to pinpoint and shove outside. Here you might learn why your house smells, and how you can get rid of that lingering scent and breathe deep in your own home again.

So there are primary household smells that are easy to identify and though not always easy to get rid of, are possible to clear out. This is your cooking odors and general animal/human odors. These are usually easy to get rid of with some general scrubbing and spray, or using a mixture of bleach and water to clear out the smell. These smells could linger and stay trapped in your home if you have a lot of carpets, or it could even get stuck to the walls and leave a funky smelling film that isn't too pleasant. We'll visit that problem next.

Smells lingering in your carpet and walls could be from last night's dinner or even last YEAR'S. Bad smells like to stick around, especially in painted walls and soaked through carpets. Steps to get the bad odors from these require a little more work than an air freshener or scrubbing with soap and water. Steam cleaning your carpets is the best option for renewing your floors and washing away the stink. It's basically like giving your carpets a much-needed bath. As for the walls, the best options here are to use a warm white vinegar solution. Diluted with water, the vinegar's strong scent is still there and will get rid of any lingering smells or stains from your painted walls. Another solution is one used with ammonia, a minimal amount (only about a tablespoon) added to a cup of warm water - though you can use more ammonia if you feel the terrible smell is too strong and needs something more substantial to combat it. Let this mixture sit on the walls for about 5 minutes and then rinse with warm water; it will clear away any stains as well as stinks.

Do you have a dishwasher? Do you remember the last time you cleaned it? If not, this could be a MAJOR source of stinkiness in your home. Something so beautiful that it washes the dishes for you also needs to be cleaned out of all that stuff it washed off those dirty dishes. Old food, soap scum, and whatever else could be lingering in the confines of a dishwasher, and it isn't a pretty smell. The solution is straightforward; at least once a month, you should be running a cup of vinegar through your dishwasher to clean out any odors or nasty stains that you can't see. Baking soda is also a dominant component in cleaning a dishwasher and is as simple as sprinkling it over the bottom before running the machine. Cleaning the trap and filter is a big part of this too. This is where most of the icky stuff is, and though it's not a fun job to clean it, it's easier if it's done monthly, so you don't get any nasty surprises if left unchecked for months.

One last quick tip that could save your home from smells and a possible electrical fire; if your house smells like fish and you haven't cooked/fried any fish in quite a long time, this could be an indicator of a major electrical problem. A burnt fishy smell where no fish are being cooked has been found to come from a burnt outlet. Any outlet or electrical wiring that emits this kind of odor is in danger of becoming an even more significant, more dangerous hazard if ignored or covered up with a scented candle or air freshener. Keep any electrical wires or outlets away from sources of heat in your home if possible, because this could be what's causing them to overheat and become burnt - or it's terrible wiring altogether.
Every house deserves to smell like it's brand new; don't keep putting off those weird smells. Ban bad odors in your home today!

If you have tried these tips and nothing seems to be working, contact Gator Clean for a Whole-Home Odor Removal.