Hi Moms - I need your help!! We went away for a long weekend and something in one of our trashcans went REALLY bad! It has that rotten death kind of smell. Now even though we've cleaned out the garage and even had the garbagemen haul away the trashcans, we have this smell left over! It's in my car too. It was parked in the garage while we were gone. Unfortunately too, we unknowingly tracked it into the house the first night we were back from our trip. I dont know how to get rid of it - I took a shower right before picking my son up from preschool and after just 10 minutes in the car - I can smell it all over me. YUCK!!!
Any suggestions???
would still love to learn your suggestions! The source was definitely the trashcans - I did look under the hood yesterday, just to be sure it wasnt a critter. So far I've mopped the garage floor with bleach, scrubbed all the hardwood, used bleach on any surfaces where I can, washed all of our clothing, used Lysol where the carpet smells and put the car through the car wash. It just seems like the smell just sticks and gets carried from place to place.
Look under the hood, you could truly have something dead in your car! A mouse or another small animal may have crawled up in there and gotten fried when you started your car. Other than that, can you keep the garage open and keep your car outside with the windows down for a day or so to air out?
My aunt had to hire a restoration company to get smells out of my grandmas house from a refridgerator incident.
If it were my car, I'd take it to a good car-wash place, explain the situation, and put out some money for the people to clean and detail it. Surely they've worked with this before. As for the garage, since you've done some cleaning, I wouldn't know what else to do but leave the garage door open when I'm at home and let it air out. Happily, it's a good time of year for that....
I have been told that bowls of vinegar can help. Also see if you can leave your garage open for awhile and your car out with the windows down. Drive everywhere with your windows down.
what I would do first in a situation like this is call up my garbage company and get rid of the garbage, have my garage washed and cleaned, using a hard surface cleaner. For the car I will send my car for a full steam cleaning http://www.detailxperts.net/hand_car_wash_exterior_steam_... service to some business like DetailXperts, this is the best way to tackle the situation I think.
charcoal or baking soda.
place all around the garage or wherever you think the smell is. charcoal would likely be less messy than baking soda. maybe even leave some pieces in the car. or use the frig boxes of baking soda.
I'd wash hard surfaces with lemon juice or vinegar (maybe mix a bottle of lemon juice in a gallon or two of hot water and mop everything you can in the garage). then scatter charcoal around or put the boxes around.
take the car to be professionally detailed and then park it outside until the smell is gone from the garage. I had a cat pee in the car once (a convertible and the cat got locked in the garage and he had an attitude!). anyway, the dealer detailed it and the smell was gone forever.
if you think the smell's in the carpet inside the house and baking soda doesn't take it out (let the baking soda sit overnight and then vacuum), call a professional for that too. again w/cat pee - I had a friend who had tried everything but the professional carpet cleaner (someone who specialized in problem odors) got the cat pee out of the carpet and sofa.
good luck!
