Last updated on February 23rd, 2023 at 04:39 am
It’s bad enough that there’s a bad smell in your house. What’s even more frustrating is that just when you think the smell is gone, it comes back all over again. Some of the most obvious offenders are moisture, decaying food, a dead animal, cracked sewer lines, and clogged drains. So what can you do about a bad smell in the house that comes and goes? Here are a few ideas.
Determine the Source
First, try to determine where the smell is coming from. A simple way to do this would be to get out of the house for about 30 minutes to get some fresh air into your nostrils. Being in the house with a bad smell for an extended period may make it difficult for you to tell where it’s stinkiest. When you walk back into the house, chances are that you will be able to follow the bad smell to its source.
Clean Your Appliances
Your dishwasher and refrigerator will always have bits of food that may decompose and cause a bad smell if you don’t clean them regularly. Remove all the scum and food debris from the bottom of your dishwasher. Rinse the filter and run your dishwasher through a vinegar and hot water cycle. Clean your fridge drawers and shelves thoroughly with a warm water and vinegar mix. Leave an open box of baking soda in the fridge to suck any bad smell.
Drain Your Kitchen Sink
A bad smell from your kitchen sink may be caused by decomposing food residue and grease stuck on the pipe, a clogged pipe, or sewer gases coming up the pipe due to a leak in the U-bend. To drain your sink, pour one cup of white vinegar down the drain, and after 30 minutes, finish with hot water. You can also pour boiling water down the drain and after 5 minutes run the cold water to solidify any remaining fats then finish with hot water again.
Call A Professional
Unfortunately, you may try everything and still not succeed in getting to the bottom of that intermittent bad smell in your home. Also, some issues won’t go away with a spring cleaning job, like broken or cracked sewer pipes, an extensive mold problem, or a dead animal stuck between the walls. That’s when you need to call in the help of professional indoor air quality experts. They will perform an odor analysis and make recommendations or remove the source of the bad smell.
Don’t ignore a bad smell in your house especially if it comes and goes. It could be an indicator of a serious problem like severe mold which is harmful to your health. Also, avoid using diffusers and scented candles as they will only mask the bad smell and not deal with the root cause. Start with determining the source, cleaning your appliances, draining your kitchen sink and if you still can’t figure it out, or if it’s a complicated issue, call in a professional.