Just moved house

[Adultinthemaking]

Hi,

I'm after some tips, i've just moved house and it was pretty grubby and smells a little stale, whats the best way to get "your" home smell back in the house.

Ive steam cleaned the hard services, should I wash the carpets?

Thank you

[RedMapleLeaf]

I'd start with as much fresh air as you can bear.

[gininteacupsandleavesonthelawn]

The best thing we did was get the carpets professionally cleaned, lit some candles and washed and dried some laundry- particularly the bed sheets.

[wowfudge]

Yes - and clean the curtains.

[mrsmeerkat]

We had a bad smell in one room (carpets) so I scrubbed with carpet mousse and zofloral and eventually it went.

[Teaandcakeat8]

Keep all windows open as much as possible, shampoo carpets (I rented a rug doctor for £20 for the whole day), clean skirting boards and all hard surfaces with flash or similar, candles/diffusers in each room.

I hate the smell of 'other people' so I'm glad after a few weeks my house has a distinct 'me' smell!!

[MyLlamasGoneBananas]

We moved just before Xmas into a house that stank to high heaven. We viewed it on a sunny late summers day when the vendors had everywindow open and a coffee machine on.
4 months later I'm only getting the occasional whiff in one area of the house which is annoying but huge progress.
I steam cleaned wooden and tiled floors with 70/30 disinfectant to water several times. We had to first scrub he kitchen tiles with a brush.
I washed down all doors and paintwork with a similar mix of disinfectant water but added washing up liquid to help lift any dirt. The orange fake tan all over one bedroom door frame took bleach but will still need painting soon.
We have our own carpet shampooed. A Vax professional thing. Cost 300 smackers and it's never seen so much action as it has in the past 4 months.
We shampooed the carpets several times using dettol/disinfectant as well as shampoo. I have found home bargains sell good carpet shampoo cheap. A rug doctor would be good to hire if you don't want to buy a shampooed. I wouldn't get a firm in to do it because you may need more than one shampoo.
Once carpets completely dry I used neutrino carpet deodorant. Stink v v v strong of pine chemically shut but helped shift any lingering stinks. We did just rip out 2 bedroom carpets in the end though.
Despite being Dec Jan and Feb I opened windows and doors at every opportunity. I also used neutrodo room air freshers. They claim to neutralise bad smells as opposed to masking bad smells. They look shit. Just Little White round plastic things with jelly stuff inside that shrivel up over time but they did seem to help. I put mine in corners of rooms in discreet places on the floors etc. Again bought them cheaply in home bargains.
Also buy a radiator brush of Amazon and lift old fluff and dust from behind and in middle of any double radiators.
Also forgot to mention that where we could we literally washed the walls too. Used a mild washing up liquid and a bit of disinfectant. Even dry wiping them is better than nothing.
Remove any old curtains too. Either bin or wash them. Even our vertical blinds cling ed onto a vile smell!! Make sure you even wash down curtain poles etc.

Good luck.