I think I'm on to Something!

I live in an old house. A wonderful house...but, it's old. And, unfortunately, it smells old. Now, I am exceptionally sensitive to smells and it was always the very first thing I noticed when we were house hunting. Step over the threshold, inhale, and I could immediately tell you whether or not it would be worth seeing the rest of the house. I was pleasantly surprised when I stepped into this 38 year old house and my nose remained uncrinkled as I sniffed away. In fact, I smelled nothing. "Great!" I thought.

Having passed the smell test, and the other few requirements on our list, we bought it and moved in during a beautiful time of year here in North Carolina where neither air conditioning or heating was needed. But, as it started getting warmer and warmer and hotter and hotter, we finally flipped on the air conditioning and, oh dear, what an unpleasant smell came through those vents. Old House Smell. I tried to ignore it for a while - hoping it would just air itself out - but it didn't. I tried to mask it with air freshiners and Febreze, and that totally worked! for an hour or so.

I mentioned my frustrations to a few ladies one morning after we'd been living with the smell for over 5 months, and one of them asked, "When was the last time you changed the air filters?"

Uh, what's an air filter?

Obviously that hadn't been done in the recent past. After getting briefed a little on Home Ownership 101, I made my way to Home Depot with a little speck of shining hope fluttering around in my heart. Was this finally going to get rid of the smell? In the filter isle I came across not only air filters, but a seemingly gold finding - VENT filters! These rectangular shaped filters are designed to slide right into your floor (or ceiling) vents to block out all the old dust being blown through your air ducts. Score! I loaded my cart with the goods and spent the rest of the afternoon 'filtering' my house.

It definitely made a difference - however - I still wasn't quite satisfied. The smell was better, but not gone. Plus the filters are kind of thick - and after a ridiculously high electric bill this last month (we're talking $150 MORE than normal), I couldn't help but wonder if the air wasn't getting through the thick fabric very efficiently. And, since we obviously don't have a very efficient heating system to begin with, I figured we should probably give it all the help we could. So, out went the vent filters.

But now, what do I do about that old house/dead rat smell?

A few days ago, I went to Costco and picked up a bunch of stuff: bread, milk, dryer sheets... and as I opened my trunk to unload all of my goods, the smell of the dryer sheets was almost overwhelming (in a good way). I took them down to the laundry room and plunked them down on top of the dryer...where they stayed until today. I walked into the laundry room today and, again, the smell of dryer sheets was very noticeable and I thought, "Gee, those things sure are potent. ... Wait a minute...."

So, into the vents they went! I taped them to the inside of many vents - and today my house smells like 'fresh linen'. Much more pleasant than dead rat.

I only hope that the smell stays for at least a week...it only takes about 15 minutes to do it all, but doing it more than once a week could get tedious.

Do any of you have any suggestions about how to make an old house smell new?