Everytime I returned to my college apartment after Thanksgiving and winter break, I would be surprised at how distinct my air freshener smelled after walking through the door. Normally I barely even noticed its scent, but that’s because I went nose blind to it. In my case, it wasn’t a big deal; if my apartment was stinky, however, that’d be a problem. Here are a few ways to find out if your apartment stinks if you don’t notice its scent anymore.
If you’re nose blind and want to know if your apartment stinks, try leaving for an hour or a couple days, ask someone who doesn’t live there if it stinks, try to change the room’s smell for a period of time or target common sources of a home’s stench.
Hearing someone tell you that your home smells can be embarrassing. If you’d rather figure this out on your own, there are a few other solutions you could try too.
1. Leave For An Hour
One of the most effective ways to detect a smell that you’ve gone blind to is to leave the place with the smell. When you leave, you’re exposing your nose to different scents that aren’t present in your apartment. For the most effective approach, go somewhere you haven’t been before. This doesn’t have to be far, just a local shop you never stop by should be enough.
Walk around there for a bit and then come back home. When you walk back into your apartment, your scent palette should be clear enough for you to smell what everyone else smells. If it’s not delightful and rather stinky, sniff out what and where the cause could be. If you can’t rely on your sense of smell to guide you, just go around the place and throw out any old food, wash any sheets that haven’t been in the laundry, vacuum the floor, etc.
2. Leave For A Couple Days
Sometimes, leaving the place for an hour isn’t going to cut it; especially if you’ve been living there for many years. That’s because, once you leave for a couple hours and come back, your nose might quickly resettle into the smell of your home. It hasn’t had enough time to defamiliarize itself with the smell of the apartment.
For example, if you spend an hour or two grocery shopping and come back inside, you might already be used to the transition from the outdoor air to the indoor air. I know that this was the case for me back in college. It was mainly after the Thanksgiving and winter breaks that my apartment would truly smell different to me. It could also be the case that you don’t have a strong sense of smell. Separate yourself from your apartment’s scent for a couple days and then come back. This should give your nose a clear picture of what your home smells like.
3. Get A Second Opinion
If your nose isn’t telling you what your apartment smells like, it’s time to bring in a different one. Not everyone processes smells the same way. According to Science Daily, “Small differences in olfactory receptor genes” ”…mean that when two people smell the same molecule, one person may detect a floral odor while another smells nothing at all.” Try to find someone else to sniff your apartment (as weird as that sounds).
Not only that, but some people have a stronger sense of smell than others. If you can find one person with both traits, then ask them for their help. It’s also best to ask someone who is honest and isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. This doesn’t mean relying on someone who’s mean and will tell you “your apartment smells horribly disgusting, oh my gosh, how can you live here?!”. This means relying on someone who will say “it smells like food might be spoiling in your fridge”. That, or “It smells like your dog”. Tell them to get specific so that you can find the source and solve the problem.
4. Spend Some Time In Each Room
Every room in your apartment could smell a bit different. If you want to get a sense of what the living room’s scent is, lock yourself in your bedroom for an hour or two. After that, walk to the living room to see if you notice any difference. This might only work if you already have a good sense of smell.
Don’t be mistaken though, even strong senses of smell go nose blind. According to healthline, when you experience “repeated or continuous stimulation by a particular odorant” “…you no longer perceive the scent.” This can happen to anyone in any home. If you don’t feel like giving the previous suggestions a try yet, then this could be a good first step to figuring out your apartment’s aroma.
5. Smell Some Coffee Beans or Other Strong Scents
This might sound weird, silly and out of the blue, but hear me out. If you’ve ever gone to a perfume shop, have you noticed a couple random coffee bean containers sitting around? They aren’t there by mistake. For years It’s been believed that these beans have the ability to cleanse your nose’s scent palette. It’s said that, by giving them a good whiff, you’ll help your nose forget everything it just smelled.
Even though it’s been believed that coffee beans were the only things with this superpower, that belief has been debunked. You can replicate this effect with almost anything that has a strong smell. I only suggest coffee beans specifically because it’s a common household item that you could use right away.
6. Go To Someone Else’s Place
Chances are, your friend or family member’s apartment doesn’t smell exactly like yours. Spending some time at their place will give your nose a break from your own; letting it reset. After spending some time over there, come back home and see if you notice any difference. Better yet, invite your friend or family member over with you to get their opinion on the smell of your place too. Between the two of you, hopefully you’ll be able to sniff out any unpleasant or unusual odors in your home.
7. Try To Change The Room’s Smell
The last thing that you could try is using a candle, oil diffuser, air freshener, incense, or opening your windows to change the smell of the room. By doing this, you’re introducing your nose to a different smell in your own home. This should give it enough time to forget the old one. After you let the new scent fill the room, put out the candle, incense, etc. so that the smell of the apartment goes back to normal overtime. Your nose might detect the transition from the lovely smell to the normal smell and, through that, you’ll find out if your apartment stinks or not.
8. Target The Source
There are multiple possible places that an apartment’s stink could be coming from. Here’s a list of some common causes and what to do about them:
1. Trash
Take out the trash in every room and then wash the cans before bringing them back inside.
2. Dirty Dishes
If you left some unwashed plates and cooking supplies in the sink, it’s time to roll up those sleeves and scrub them down. Either that or put them in the dishwasher. Afterwards, wipe your sink down with some soapy water so that food residue doesn’t leave a bad smell in the kitchen.
Lastly, clean the garbage disposal. This is similar to how I did it in my college apartment: fill a pot with hot water, pour a 1/2 cup of baking soda and 1 cup of vinegar down the garbage disposal and, after 10 minutes, run the garbage disposal as you pour the hot water down the drain. This gets rid of food leftovers that linger in the drain and gets rid of the smell.
3. Leftover Smells From Cooking
If you cooked a particularly aromatic food, like fish, in your apartment recently, then the stink might be lingering in the air. Just so you know, I fried beer battered fish in my college apartment before (which I would never do again), so I’m no stranger to this dilemma. It’s a good thing my roommate wasn’t there, but I wanted to get rid of the smell before she came back home. To do this, I filled a hotpot with vinegar and cranked it up to the highest setting until it boiled and evaporated. As the vinegar mist settled, it got rid of the fish smell.
4. Pet Smells
Depending on the kind of pet that you have, there are different ways to reduce their smell. If you have a dog or a cat, the best thing you can do is bathe them regularly. Here is a guide on how to do that. If you have a bird, here’s how to keep them clean. For all other pets, I suggest googling how to manage their smell.
5. Mold or Mildew
There might be some nasty fungi growing in the apartment. If it’s coming from the walls, floor or any other structure in the home, talk to your landlord about it asap. If it’s coming from some leftover food, wet clothes, or some other thing that’s within your control, either wash or dispose of it.
6. The Fridge
It’s time to clean out any leftover food that’s been in the fridge for too long. When I was in college, my roommate came up with the idea to label each container with the date that it was cooked in order to avoid leaving them in there for too long. This could help prevent a gross odor from developing in your apartment.
7. Poor Ventilation
Sometimes your apartment doesn’t have a gross source for the stink that’s lingering around the place, you just don’t open your windows enough. Leave them open for 15 minutes a day and, if you have a fan, turn that on at the same time to get maximum airflow. For extra help, you could also buy an air purifier. If you’re worried about bugs, buy a removable screen to put on your windows.