The apartment in which the elderly person lived has a specific smell. It is a real test for the sensitive sense of smell. Therefore, when moving into a house where a grandfather or grandmother previously lived, the new residents immediately have the question of how to get rid of the smell of old age, which seems to literally permeate the walls right through. It is very difficult to weather it. Regular air fresheners cannot mask it. Therefore, the problem of odor control is quite complex. Read about how to solve it on this page of the women's website “Beautiful and Successful”.
Smells like old age
If we are talking about people, then, as a rule, a heavy unpleasant aroma comes from non-compliance with certain factors:
1. Personal hygiene:
Elderly people are no longer able to take care of themselves the way they did before; they simply no longer care about such problems. All household chores for older people can cause difficulties due to infirmity, loneliness, and illness. Various diseases, such as arthritis, decreased vision or osteochondrosis, greatly impair the ability to move quickly and make it difficult to take a normal shower. If an old man is lonely, then he simply doesn’t see any point in washing.
2. Clothes:
Typically, older people wear the same clothes for a very long time. Clothes are capable of absorbing all the smells and surrounding aromas like a sponge. And as a result of this superposition of individual odors, peculiar fluids of old age are formed.
The appearance of old odors in the apartment
The smell of old age, which has a peculiar specificity, can appear in a room for various reasons.
, among which may be factors such as a breakdown of the ventilation system, a break in the water supply or sewerage system, high humidity levels, fungal infections, dampness, poor thermal insulation, old, poorly dried items in closets or other enclosed spaces.
In those rooms where old furniture is located, it is this that serves as a source of a specific smell.
A similar smell is formed in those rooms
, which serve as storerooms if they are not properly cared for. Usually we ourselves create the appearance of an average smell of decay when we throw different rubbish into a pile, and its smells overlap each other. And in this regard, stale paper gives off very strong odors, since the cellulose included in its composition absorbs everything very well.
Cardinal method
The cause of a musty smell is most often mold that has formed in the closet. The situation can be complicated by high humidity and insufficient ventilation of the room.
Before you start taking measures, you need to remove everything from the wardrobe. If there is fungus, then you need to start washing.
First way
A proven remedy - vinegar - will help remove the smell of old things from your apartment. You can use not only table, but also apple.
Take a glass of water and dilute two tablespoons of vinegar in it. Dampen a rag in the resulting liquid, wring it out and wipe all corners, walls and shelves. Don't forget to wipe the furniture from the front.
If the cabinet is collapsible, then it is better to dry the parts in the fresh air.
Second way
We get rid of the smell in the apartment using potassium permanganate. To do this, dilute potassium permanganate in water; the solution should be pinkish in color. Clean all corners and shelves in your closet.
We suggest you read: How to remove the smell of stale meat
This method is not suitable for light-colored furniture, as potassium permanganate can leave marks.
Third way
Most of the apartment stinks from accumulated bacteria and fungi. Therefore, removing unpleasant odors involves antibacterial treatment.
To carry out the procedure, make a homemade solution. To do this you will need vinegar and water in a one to one ratio. A few drops of essential oil are also added. Mix the liquid well and pour into a container with a spray bottle.
Periodically treat all furniture, walls, floors, and window sills with the solution.
There is one caveat: the air should not stagnate during drying. Therefore, open windows and doors for ventilation.
There are different ways to combat the senile “smell” in the house, but you need to know that sometimes it will still appear again. One of the important methods of combating the smell of old things is general cleaning.
To complete it you will need:
- any chlorine-containing detergent composition;
- carpet cleaner;
- strong air fresheners.
When cleaning the homes of older people, you should know that the best option for eliminating the old smell would be to renovate the apartment - replacing wallpaper, repainting floors and windows.
However, repairs alone will not be enough, because almost all things in the room become saturated with age. To get it out, you need to start with things, making a complete audit of them and throwing out all the trash from the closets. After all, in a cluttered room, all things are saturated with the aroma of the old, which can be very difficult to remove. Clothes should be taken out of the closet and washed thoroughly, and then dried outside, which will help the odors to dissipate better.
After the cabinets and bedside tables are emptied and the old things are thrown away, it is necessary to rinse them on all sides with water in which the cleaning agent is diluted, since bleach easily eliminates unpleasant odors.
The windows also need to be washed no less thoroughly, and if the wallpaper is not re-pasted, then they too must be washed, since dust has settled on them and various odors have been absorbed. Therefore, the wallpaper needs to be wiped with a well-wrung out cloth (this needs to be done even if it is not washable).
When washing floors, you need to use disinfectants that will help remove old odors. It is best if they have a forest or citrus aroma. You need to wash the floors very carefully, changing the water 3-4 times.
We must not forget about ventilation of houses and apartments. If in winter it is recommended to do this several times a day, then in summer it is necessary to constantly keep the window open. In addition, you can constantly use an ionic air conditioner, which refreshes the air in the room and also does not allow it to stagnate.
An air freshener has a good effect, especially if it is automatic. Since modern air freshening compounds not only reduce bad odors, but also completely eliminate them, the apartment will always have a pleasant aroma.
You should check all kitchen cabinets and throw away old food items. Cereals need to be poured into clean bags and tied tightly. These cabinets also need to be treated with a chlorine solution, and then you can put everything back in its place.
To radically get rid of unpleasant odors, this radical method is best suited, but it is also the most expensive:
- thoroughly ventilate the apartment;
- throw out all things from the smelly room;
- throw away all furniture and household appliances;
- remove wallpaper from the walls;
- remove ceiling and floor coverings;
- re-ventilate the rooms;
- carry out wet cleaning using disinfectants;
- invite a professional exterminator to treat the premises;
- ventilate again;
- re-clean the apartment.
After cleaning and treating interior items and upholstered furniture, it is time for additional cleaning of the apartment from unpleasant odors. Such measures not only get rid of unwanted aroma, but also give an unusual smell. You can place ground coffee or orange peels throughout the rooms.
But there are other options that will help remove unpleasant odors from your home:
- Light scented candles or sticks.
- Use an aroma lamp with your favorite essential oil on an ongoing basis.
- Burning paper will take with it the unpleasant smell of old age.
- Carry out quartzing using a special lamp.
- Ignite the monad.
- Use an ozonizer.
- Place indoor plants. They filter the air well.
You can also spread crushed activated carbon around the apartment. It is a good absorbent that absorbs all aromas. You can get rid of the smell in an old apartment through renovation.
How to get rid of unpleasant odor in a room
First of all, it is necessary to identify the source of the rotten old smell and eliminate it.
General cleaning with special products can help with this.
- Don't use air fresheners
, since they are not able to completely eliminate odors, but only partially mask them. But the most unpleasant thing is that they cause enormous harm to human health. Indeed, behind these pleasant odors are hidden very harmful toxic substances, which quite easily enter the human body along with the breath, and are also absorbed through the skin.
- If trash has accumulated in the room for a long time
, then you just need to throw it away or go through it and throw away what has already served its purpose and is not needed. Things like broken chairs, old shoes, clothes worn out a long time ago, newspapers and magazines should simply be thrown away immediately.
- All hard-to-reach places in the apartment should be thoroughly washed
, wipe all doors, walls and even ceilings. Or maybe it’s even better to change the wallpaper completely.
- It is advisable to get rid of carpets for good immediately.
If this is not possible, then using special products you should thoroughly clean it and ventilate everything well, and best of all, take it to the dry cleaner right away.
- You should open your curtains every day
, since ultraviolet light kills mold and pathogens. A UV lamp also has a good effect, but it is important to know that when using it there should be no one in the room. It is recommended to turn on the lamp once a week for ten to fifteen minutes.
In order to begin the fight for freshness in the apartment, you need to stock up on the necessary cleaning tools:
Special preparations
To neutralize odors and aromatize the room, special household chemicals are used. They come in convenient packaging and are mostly effective.
SmellOff Universal
The spray is suitable for eliminating a wide range of odors, acting equally effectively on any surface.
SmellOff copes with odor:
- tobacco,
- urine,
- sweat,
- missing products and others.
Can be used to process:
Price – about 700 rubles for 500 ml.
Odorgone Professional
Professional product is a universal preparation in the form of a concentrate that removes odors at the molecular level. Odorgone copes with aromas of any complexity:
- smells of rotting,
- dampness,
- cat marks,
- feces,
- gasoline, etc.
Price – from 800 rubles per 500 ml.
Helmetex neutralizer
The neutralizer does not mask, but directly:
- eliminates unpleasant odors at the molecular level,
- fights bacteria
- gives a fresh aroma.
It can be used to freshen textiles and hard surfaces. Dries quickly after application and does not require rinsing. Price – from 600 rubles per 400 ml.
Removing the old smell with vinegar
Best for room treatment
for those with old odors, vinegar is perfect. This is an indispensable tool for removing all unpleasant and heavy odors.
To do this, mix two tablespoons of vinegar with a glass of water.
, moisten a rag in the resulting solution and very carefully wipe every wooden element in the house. After about a week, this procedure must be repeated.
Vinegar removes odors very well
, and disinfects the room. For more convenient use, it can be poured into a spray bottle.
Bay leaf
Another option for solving the problem of old and strong odor is bay leaf. You will need to take a dry plant, set it on fire and walk through the rooms in the house.
Such a simple manipulation will fill your home with a pleasant aromatic smoke, which will dissolve over time, leaving behind only a feeling of clean air without any impurities.
In addition, the aroma of a burnt bay leaf improves the energy of the home. After the procedure, a person feels absolute calm, relaxation and tranquility. Also, bay tree leaves help people who from time to time experience a feeling of lack of oxygen.
Other remedies against the specific odor of senility
In order for the result to be successfully established after colossal work and cleaning the room with vinegar and potassium permanganate, you need to prevent old persistent unpleasant odors from returning.
You can use various other means to do this:
- Place citrus peels and zests throughout your apartment. It can be laid out on all shelves, boxes and crevices of the apartment.
- Ground or whole coffee beans. The main thing here is that the smell from it goes smoothly to all corners.
- Scented soap. It can be cut into many small cubes and placed in all places in the room, especially in closets with bedding.
- Soda, lemon powder, activated carbon. These substances are also placed in bowls throughout the house.
Potassium permanganate solution
Nowadays, selling potassium permanganate in our country can even lead to imprisonment. This universal antediluvian substance was equated to especially dangerous chemicals. But it seems like there is a bottle with dark purple crystals in every home.
A couple of crystals on a container of water, a pale pink solution - and the Mr. Propers rest languidly on the sidelines. Manganese copes well with a variety of odors of organic nature, and its own damp smell quickly disappears, taking away all the stench. In addition, potassium permanganate, as you know, is an excellent disinfectant. Therefore, when buying household chemicals for hundreds of hryvnia, sometimes think that there is a cheap, effective and safe product for health.
Homemade deodorant
There is a way to remove unpleasant odors in the room using a homemade deodorant.
made at home.
It is done quite easily.
To do this, mix vinegar and warm water in a ratio of one to one, and add any favorite essential oil to this mixture. The resulting spray should be used to treat those surfaces that emit an old and musty smell.
Many housewives use this spray to care for their premises.
When wiping, you should always close the cabinet doors only when the surface is completely dry.
Matches
This product will soon disappear from sale as a type altogether - all sorts of electrical gadgets have long since entered our everyday life. Nevertheless, we still dearly love old matches and, when the dollar fluctuates, we habitually buy hundreds of boxes of them. And there is probably not a single person who does not know about the miraculous ability of matches, or rather, a match flame, to destroy in a matter of seconds any unpleasant odors of an organic nature. It's all about a banal chemical reaction. Or, more precisely, completely unbanal. When a match burns, several chemical reactions occur one after another. The first is the combustion of red phosphorus, which covers the sides of the box. Next, sulfur and Berthollet salt, which are contained in the match head, come into play. Then the barrel of the match, soaked in wax, burns, and oxygen burns in the air. It’s no wonder that all the organic matter in such a cocktail burns without a trace. So don't ignore good old penny matches.
Cleaning upholstered furniture
You should always pay attention to upholstered furniture
, which often bears the brunt of the impact from older people, since waste products of older people very often end up on the surface of sofas or beds.
When treating any upholstered furniture, it is recommended to always open the windows wide.
To prepare the solution, mix well one teaspoon of citric acid with two glasses of water, one teaspoon of vinegar and one tablespoon of liquid soap or any detergent.
When you prepare the mixture, a thick, stable foam will form.
, which must be applied with a sponge to the upholstery of the sofa. After approximately two hours, the surface should be thoroughly cleaned with a brush.
Dry fog generator
This device allows you to permanently and completely get rid of the smell of antiquity. It is capable of spraying small particles that envelop molecules and can irritate our sense of smell. The particle size can penetrate even the deepest structures and layers.
Why does it have this name? When the process of spraying particles with a generator occurs, a kind of cloud is formed, which is very similar to fog.
This device was invented in the USA. The substances obtained there have the ability to penetrate into the most inaccessible places. It’s hard to imagine, but they are able to penetrate even the pores of any materials. The device is able to capture odor and remove it permanently.
Mold
This scourge starts in conditions of high humidity. Therefore, the main preventive measure will be to regularly ventilate the room and heat it. In a cold room there is more air humidity.
How to deal with the smell of dampness and mold
If mold has grown on the walls, you can spray them with a spray bottle with a special product that can be purchased at household chemical stores. And if you didn’t have time to take care of this in advance, then you can make do with improvised means.
Advice: Before you start fighting this scourge, you need to warm up the air in the room well. Have you already lit the stove or turned on the heater? If not, then do it now and wait a couple of hours, you will find something to spend this time on?
Unfortunately, if mold has grown on drywall , you will have to get rid of it. It is almost impossible to remove mold from it without it appearing again later.
The same problem is with plaster; all methods of combating mold will only be a temporary measure if the walls are not cleaned down to the concrete.
☝ Yes, in this case, there will be a lot of hassle. But if you don’t want to put up with the constant smell of mold in your country house, then there are no other options. To ensure that the question of how to get rid of the smell of dampness in your dacha does not constantly arise in front of you, you will have to think about repairs.
But let's leave major repairs for later. Our task for now is to get rid of the musty smell in the house.
- Take table vinegar and a spray bottle. Treat problem areas with it. Ventilate the room. If the smell remains, repeat the procedure several times.
- You can use 3% hydrogen peroxide, which is applied with a brush or sponge, 10% ammonia diluted in half with water, a pink solution of potassium permanganate, or a solution of baking soda with the addition of tea tree oil. Well, it’s still the same whiteness, but you’ll have to dilute it 1:2 or 1:3, not forgetting to wear rubber gloves.
- mold in a basement or cellar using radical methods. For example, burn a sulfur bomb there or treat it with a strong solution of copper sulfate. If you have neither one nor the other, then treat with any of the previously discussed solutions and leave the hatch open for a week. It is also useful to warm up the cellar by installing a heater there.
Some recommendations
When older people live in the same room for a very long time, unpleasant odors are unlikely to be avoided. Unfortunately, the odor problem is not always and not everyone can completely cope with.
If, after you have made every effort to get rid of the specific senile smell, but absolutely nothing has helped you, it is best to make a major overhaul in your apartment.
And in order to consolidate the results obtained for as long as possible, you must adhere to some simple rules:
1. Try to regularly ventilate your apartment. Or just always, if possible, leave the windows open, especially when household members are not at home.
2. Always keep the room tidy and do not bring new things. The apartment needs some time to relax and freshen up a bit.
3. If there is high moisture in the house, it will lead to mold. And therefore, it is recommended to carry out general cleaning as often as possible.
4. Try to use only natural fragrances for your home.
Sewerage
The smell of sewage in a private house first appears in the kitchen and toilet, and then spreads throughout all rooms, so that it sometimes becomes unbearable to be inside. The reason that the sewer smells often lies in unskilled installation, poor functioning of the water seal or blockages in the pipes.
To prevent clogged problems, install strainers in bathtub and sink drains to trap hair and other debris and prevent them from entering the drain. Clean your pipes monthly using chemicals. Well, if the problem already exists, clean the riser. In case of other problems with plumbing or if there is an old sewer system, you are unlikely to be able to do anything yourself, all you have to do is call plumbers.
