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Airing out a house
I'm not sure if this the right spot to post this, but I thought you all might have some suggestions, so sorry if this isn't the right place.
I'll try to keep this short. We recently moved into a new place (that smells like the previous owner's dog) with no screens on the windows or sliding glass doors and I'm looking for a way to air out the house and keep all the bugs and critters outside, while making sure my pets stay inside. The windows are all irregularly shaped so I haven't been able to find screens to fit any of the windows and it's frustrating not being able to enjoy having my windows open like I'm used to.
I'm beginning to see why so many people down here don't open the windows and just run the AC all the time, but I much prefer having the windows open and letting the breeze come through, especially on a rainy day like today where it isn't insanely hot.
Re: Airing out a house
The house we are scheduled to settle on at the end of next month smells liek a combination of dirty dog and cigarette smoke. Yuk.
While we do have the luxury of leaving windows open, we plan to re-paint basically every wall -- using Killz as a primer -- along with some serious deep cleaning of the floors.
We also have a door with no screen (it opens inward and theres an immediate step up) and we plan to buy some sort of a Magnetic Screen Door. It's not pretty, but it will enable us to leave the door open and keep the bugs out:
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Mesh-Hands-free-Screen-Magnetic/dp/B007WH8S8A
It's not expensive so it may be worth a try!
In addition to the previous suggestions, if you have carpet in the house I would get it professionally cleaned. Look for deals on Groupon or Angie's List.
The other thought would be that if you are in an area with high humidity, a dehumidifier can really hope with odors. Air purifiers can as well.
Thanks everyone! I will give your suggestions a try. We do live in a very humid area (moved from Colorado to Georgia.) so a might be a good investment. I do have an air purifier so I'll turn that on high to see if it helps. Luckily the only carpet in the house is on the stairs, but we have noticed that certain areas under the new pergo floors seem to smell stronger than others. I'm hoping another deep clean will help out some too (the sellers were supposed to have it professionally cleaned for us, but it doesn't look like that happened if the dust, grease and dog hair I've been cleaning up are any indication--yuck!).
Has anyone had the ducts cleaned and found that to help? I'm thinking of looking into doing that (saw a Groupon deal today) just to make sure everything is clean. I figure it couldn't hurt, right?
Thanks again for your help!
I don't know if the duct cleaning will help a lot with the odor, but it's never a bad idea to ensure you clean ductwork for other reasons too. Especially if people ran their central air all the time, you want that all to be cleaned out.
Here in Philadelphia, all the hardware stores and Home Depot types sell removable screens; so many houses don't have screens in the windows here for whatever reason. They typically come in 2 sizes, one taller than the other so you can keep the window open higher. They are adjustable in their width. Simple solution, and not too expensive.
Why is there an odor under your pergo flooring? That is a bigger concern to me, and I don't think is going to be remedied by an airing out. Was the dog not housebroken? If you have urine soaked into the underflooring, I'm not sure how you'll be able to get rid of that odor. Some animal odors are pretty persistent.
You should have the ducts cleaned for sure just because it is good to do. There is a product at the home depot called odoban. You would have to bring up the floors and soak the subfloor in it. Make sure you let it dry completely before putting the floors back down. It's a lot of work but you have to get to the subfloor to get rid of the smell. If they did pee anywhere on the floor then you are going to smell it where they covered it up.
You might also try posting in the Pets section as people there might know a better solution for you.
Thanks! I just made an appointment to have our ducts cleaned--they're going to clean the chimney and dryer vents too so yay!
The dog smell under the floor seems to be mostly in the den, and I only noticed it after my H had steam cleaned the floors in there and I was down on the ground scrubbing the baseboards (seriously wishing I had just given in and had someone else come clean the dang house!). It smelled a bit like wet dog in there, and based on the amount of fur that was stuck to the baseboards and every little nook and cranny my guess is that some fur got stuck under the flooring when they were putting it in. I moved the air purifier down to that room last night and now it doesn't smell like wet dog anymore, so I guess that's a good thing!