Fix Your Apartment Smell

By Lev Novak

Your apartment might smell.

That’s just a thing of life. Smells happen, but the tricky part is where you live, the smell becomes standard. You may or may not notice the smell, so it’s safe to assume there is a smell. It could be a good smell; friendship and clean air, or even a neutral smell, like “life” but it could also be worse.

There’s no nice way to say this. Your apartment might smell bad. And you might not even know it. You sure can’t ask people; what are they going to say, right? Instead, solve the problem. Even if your apartment smells fine, it should smell better, right?

1. Smoke Outside

Seriously. This can be tough; smokers like the smell and experience of smoking and after all, it gets cold outside. Especially with certain smokables, being in an enclosed space might increase the experience, or maybe you’ll just leave a window open so you can smoke hookah while watching T.V. Solid ideas, of course, but they don’t quite work.

That’s because smoke lingers and permeates objects. It will fill your cushions and walls more than just depart harmlessly out the window. And it will only do this a little; but it’ll do this a little each time. The smoke will get stale and turn putrid, gradually making your apartment smell…well, off. But you won’t notice. Until, of course, it’s too late.

2. Febreeze

This stuff is magic, dude. Just get a little bottle and spray it as needed. It isn’t a substitute for a cleaner house, but it’s a step in and of itself.

3. Wash Stuff

Wash your clothes, dude. Don’t have a giant three-week load, because besides the “you can wear socks” fallacy you’ll get into, your clothes on the floor are going to smell. Not too bad, but consider; if by the end of your wash-cycle your clothes all fail the smell-test, that means there’s a small cloud of smell around your room for the days before you wash. Cut it out and wash. Especially your towels; a light stale mildewy stench is no fun at all, and also wash your sheets.

Lastly, wash yourself. Shower, my man. That should be a given, but this is the internet here; I don’t take anything for granted.

4. Beware Food

Clean up the kitchen well. And beware your fridge and the lingering food in there.

That’s the big stuff; food is supposed to smell. Even in the best case scenario; say, you cook great and you cook often- that means there’s lingering food-smell throughout the house. In the worst case scenario; say, you order pizza a lot and then you have leftover pizza in the fridge for a week and a half- there’s going to be some smells. A lot.

I’m not a clean person by nature, but food trash is a dangerous animal; often, it was literally an animal. Get rid of it before the food takes its revenge and gets rid of you. That’s just smell-karma. Think about it. It’s spooky.

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