Make Your House Smell Fresh and Clean!

Everybody loves walking and living in a clean, fresh smelling house.  It is the place where we spend the most of our time and like it or not, the way it smells can sometimes influence your mood. A nice or fresh-smelling house will keep the inhabitant in a good mood all day long.

A house with bad odors can prevent those friendly neighbors or visitors to come in.  It doesn’t help you to relax either after a long, tiring and stressful day either.

What causes the odors?

There are many factors that make your house doesn’t smell that good, but the major things are pets, foods (either fresh or rotten ones), laundry, the kitchen and bathroom. Bad ventilation can also make the problem worse. So, to get rid of the unpleasant smell, it is a must that you find the sources first.

How to get rid of those nasty smells?

Getting rid of it doesn’t require a hard work.  You just have to be very diligent in keeping your house clean and make sure your ventilation works well.  Fresh air really helps in keeping your house smell fresh and clean and opening door and windows.

Here are other things that you can do:

1. Preventing is always a best bet.  When you see foods spill on your kitchen floor or tables, wipe them as soon as you can.  Do not let them stay there creating nasty smell.  The same thing goes to your garbage can.  Empty it even when it’s not completely full.  Imagine how bad overnight food in your garbage can will smell in the next morning.  Not that nice!
2. Air freshener will also help, so do not doubt to use it.  Choose the ones that have fragrance the most appealing to you.  Make sure to use fresheners after your house is cleaned.  Dirty and smelly house doesn’t work well with them.  For instance, your house smells fishy and you try to cover it with rose scented freshener.  Instead of getting rid of the smell, you’ll end up with having a worse combination like fishy rose smell.  It is no better than the fishy smell you had in the first place.
3. Keep your pets clean, bathe them in a regular basis and watch for the litter box.  Leaving them sitting around for too long will only cause your house smelling worse.
4. Baking soda is good smell absorbent.  Put a tablespoon of it at the bottom of your garbage bag to neutralize the odors.
5. Keep your windows open.  This will help to let go the germs and let the fresh air to come in.
6. To make an inexpensive air freshener, you can mix your favorite fabric softener with water, put it into a spray bottle and shake well.  Use this on your curtains, carpets, fake plants etc.
7. If you love baking your own bread, it will aid a pleasant aroma too.  The delicious smell of home-made bread will stay in the house all day long.
8. Carpet deodorizer helps to prevent nasty smell of dust, use it before vacuuming.
9. You can light your favorite scented candles to add some fragrance.  Do this for 30 minutes everyday.
10. The last but not least, do not smoke inside the house.  Tobacco has very strong smell and no amount of air freshener will be able to overcome it.

Cleaning with Vinegar

Some may point out that vinegar can not do what can be done with bleach or other harsh detergents or disinfectants. Although it does not kill bacteria, vinegar has many excellent uses when it comes to cleaning your home.

For example, no matter how much we rinse glasses, they seem to always end up with spots once they have dried.

Why?

This happens because although the soap has been rinsed, some of the very resistant soap remains. When the soap has dried it becomes those ugly spots.

A great way to avoid this is by rinsing the dishes and glasses in a sink filled with water and vinegar. Rinsed once again under running water, they will be spot free, and have no remaining vinegar smell. Plus using a natural cleanser like vinegar helps reduce a lot of plumbing problems. I learned all of this from a Los Angeles home contractor friend of mine. He is in the home business, so he has a LOT of experience.

The odor that emits from some kitchens is hard to believe. Who would expect that the kitchen in such a well kept home could smell so bad?

Small food particles which become trapped in the drain, and especially residual from a garbage disposal are generally responsible for this odor.

A cup of vinegar poured into the drain about once a week will eliminate this problem, and leave the kitchen smelling fresh once again.

Putting a used lemon through the disposal now and then will also smell fantastic.

At one time or another, we have all had to deal with perspiration stains on our clothing. These yellow stains are extremely embarrassing, and usually mean that a garment will be discarded.

This can lead to enormous, unnecessary expense. Pouring a cup of vinegar in with the wash is an effective way of removing these stains, and saving the garment.

It is absolutely imperative however that bleach is not used at this time. The combination of bleach and vinegar will emit a deadly chlorine gas. These two liquids should never be used together for any reason!

Cleaning the bathtub can be a back breaking job. To loosen plaque build up in a tub, make a paste of baking soda and vinegar.

This can be gently “scrubbed” onto the surface of the tub, and will remove the build up with very little effort. This an excellent cleaner for old an new tubs alike, and will not leave scratches. This works great for any build up on similar surfaces and even fiberglass conduit fittings. My old landlord suggested this to me.

It will also save people quite a bit of money when compared to commercial cleaners.

Salt and vinegar is an excellent combination for potatoes. This is also a fantastic combination for cleaning metal. Vases, silverware, and just about anything which is made out of metal with come clean without being scratched, with this combination.

It is important to always check with a professional before cleaning any antiques or fine collectibles in order to make sure that it will be safe to clean them at all.

It is recommended that some of these items are to be left uncleaned.

Hard water stains are a huge problem for some folks. These horrible yellow to brown stains seem resistant to almost everything short of harsh chemicals. Often homeowners fear that people will believe that they do not clean properly. In order to clean this type of a stain in a sink, fill the sink just enough to cover the stain, with vinegar.

Allow this to sit for as long as possible, until it softens, and then gently scrub the stain with the baking soda/vinegar paste. This may take a bit of elbow grease, but It will remove the stain safely.

Although it may not have the antibacterial properties of bleach, it is safe, gentle, and all natural.

This is how vinegar is an effective cleaner for your home.