How to Destroy Odors Cheaply and Quickly

Smelly feet makes a room smelly! (Photo: Princess Cy)

I had the choice recently in the new place I’m staying.

Either have the steamer guys come back and re-clean the room for more cost or find a way to remove the odor with an at home process.

I’m frugal with myself. Even if my land lady would pay for it, I opted to do it myself quickly instead of waiting nearly a week for them to come. I definitely didn’t want to sleep in a stinky room for a week.

I researched a little and set out to my local Wal-Mart to look for some carpet cleaners. I also read baking soda was great for eliminating odors. After looking for a while to only find ONE type of carpet cleaning powder, I went for baking soda. It was much cheaper and I only wanted to remove odor. I also read that carpet cleaning powder is for high traffic very short carpet, more industrial type area or office. In shag carpet, it doesn’t all get picked up by the vacuum and cleans dirt off shoes to dirty carpet.

I would not recommend using Fabreeze or other spray items to cover up smells. These are temporary and all it does is cover up the smell not eliminate it. The other joke about Fabreeze is that it makes things clean smelling even if they are dirty.

Baking soda has way more uses than just destroying odors. It (from the back of an Arm & Hammer Pure Baking Soda Box):

• Improves Liquid laundry performance
• Scrubs away stains and grease without scratching
• For Household Deodorizing (What I used it for)
• Personal Care
• Relaxing Bath
• Fuller Hair
• Facial Exfoliant

It says there are hundreds of uses. I like.

I also used the baking soda to deodorize my car and also accidentally cleared my nasal passages.

I accidentally cleared my nasal passages by sniffing my carpet while my carpet still had a layer of baking soda on it; I did this twice without thinking much each time. Now I can breathe clearly!

Here is what I did to destroy the odors in my carpet. I’ll tell you this, it was REALLY bad. Imagine if you had worked out in the same clothes 5 times in a week and left it in a gym bag in the sun. It was bad.

Cleaning Odors out of Carpet

Here are the tools you need:

• Baking Soda
• Broom or some type of brush that is clean
• Vacuum

1. The first thing to do is to vacuum the whole area two or three times to make sure it is clean.
2. The next step is to sprinkle the powder throughout the whole room. Be generous, use a lot.
3. Now with the clean broom or brush, start working the baking soda into the carpet and around it. The reason is so the baking soda gets into the deep places of the carpet and clings to odors below the surface.
4. Let the baking soda sit and soak for a while in the carpet. I let it sit 30 minutes to 60 minutes.
5. Vacuum the whole room.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 if smell is not completely gone. I had to do these 3 times to remove the smell.

There you have it, an easy and fast way to clean odors; you can use baking soda on many other things and in many different functions. This is especially great if you are a Vagabond traveling and odors concern you. Think of creative ways to use baking soda.

You can buy baking soda in most places in the world.

What uses do you have with baking soda?

Posted on February 12th 2010.

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