To tell someone their house stinks of dog?

[newtscamander]

I'm an estate agent, people have put their house on the market with me and all three viewers this week have mentioned it stinks of dog. BUT they wouldn't have otherwise bought the house, as it just wasn't right for various reasons. So really the dog smell isn't necessarily stopping the house from being sold...yet... WIBU to tell them though?!

Having bought a house that stank of dog - unknowingly to us thanks to every viewing bring on a sunny day with windows open and plug ins and Yankee candles galore, the smell of dog would actually be a deal breaker for me in the future.
5 months on. We've redecorated most of downstairs. It's solid wood floor. It's been steam cleaned with disinfectant so many times, polished sprayed etc etc. 3 new radiators on the walls and we still get whiffs of their fucking stinky dog.

I've had both sets of french doors open and most windows a little recently as the weather had perked up but today it's peeing down so the windows are all closed. I just popped in my dining room and got a strong dog whiff . Dh just mentioned he got a whiff in the hallway when he got back from Tesco just now. My scented candles are out for now but it looks like another deep clean is on the cards next week and increasingly like the whole of downstairs will need new flooring!

Tell them. I personally will run a mile from any house with the slightest dog whiff in the future no matter how lovely the house.

Don't tell them.

They have dogs,they will smell.

If you are any good at your job, you'll make prospective purchasers realise the dog smell will go when they move in.

The only smells to watch out for when buying a house are:

• Gas (indicating there's something wrong with the pipes)
• Sewage (indicating something is wrong with the plumbing)
• Damp / mould (indicating everything up to and including major structural issues)

Dog smells, cat smells, cigarette smoke smells, overpowering-Glade-diffuser smells - none of those matter and will go.

our house smelt unbearably of dogs when we bought it, to the point that you could smell it before you even rang the door bell, we cleaned the carpets ourselves, it made it worse .... had it cleaned professionally worse still, the guy who came to do it explained that this can sometimes happen, when the smell is deep into the carpet after prolonged contact, no choice but to rip up and start again

Where are you based OP?

I could use the contact details of a reticent and sensitive estate agent

Quite so Dacre

I must be stupid Betsey as years ago i didnt buy house that reeked of dogs and the carpet looked alive (with fleas).

Op you need to give advice framed as feedback in be friendliest possible way as replacing carpets, deepclean and possible rentokil will add up for the buyers and will put people off.

I rented a doggy smelling house once. Never again.

I thought it would be easy to get rid of with a carpet vac. Nope, just made it worse. I spent a bloody fortune on cleaning products and hours deep cleaning on a weekly basis. And another fortune on scented candles, plug ins and reed diffusers.

I was still catching the odd whiff 6 months later when we moved out. If I bought a doggy house it want to budget for a full carpets replacement and a whole house redecorate.

DP and I are currently house hunting. We've discounted a few houses because, although they ticked all the boxes on paper, they just didn't have the feeling. I would imagine that it would make it somewhat harder to encourage said warm 'n' fuzzy feeling amongst prospective buyers when it reeks of dog.

Watch any property porn on Channel 4 and you'll know how selling houses is about selling a lifestyle- you'd have to friggin love dickhead dogs for the smell not to impact on that. And it would also make me think, "dirty bastards, wonder what else they're not noticing".

Yes ooh that's what you do. You budget new carpets. Big deal, when you factor everything in.

This is weird. Our house stank of dog the day we got the keys (thank GOD we didn't have to live in it straight away) but it didn't smell when we viewed it!! bizarre. We took up the carpets and the smell of dog vanished.

We know people that smoke in their garden, their house still stinks of smoke! As do their cars. They believe they don't, but they are nose blind. Smoking reeks way more than dogs.

TELL THEM, especially if they ask why it isn't selling.

No idea who you are Lulioli but thanks for the input

It's interesting to hear from people about this actually, and how it clearly would matter to a good proportion of viewers.

And just5mins I'm in Northumberland.

A car we once had must have been previously owned by someone with a dog. Even after about 5 years, on a hot day you'd open the car door to get in and be hit by the smell of dog.

And yes thecraicdealer I think has a good point about "the feeling". All that fresh coffee and flowers stuff sounds so cliché, but it really can be the swaying point when it comes to making the house seem more homely. Perhaps I should start with that, suggesting flowers and plug in freshners rather than "oi, ya mutt stinks, sort it."

I was watching old re-runs of the house doctor on Ch 5 recently and she bathed the dogs and completely replaced carpets when the house smelt of dog!

"He is. We mostly call him dickhead now. His real name is a memory."

He should meet our cat who, due to his habit of biting you if you don't stroke him enough/stroke him too much/look at him wrong, is now known as CatBastard, Pagwatch!!

Newt - could you say something tactful like "they could tell you had dogs, and it was a bit off-putting"?

We've just sold our house. The estate agent passed on a couple of comments that weren't entirely flattering(!) which we were grateful for. He didn't do it in a "Your house sucks because X" way. But rather, "A couple of the buyers have commented that they weren't keen on x. If we don't get a suitable offer from this batch you could consider [remedial action to make x disappear], which shouldn't cost much and could hasten a sale."

As it was we got suitable offers anyway, but I was not at all offended by the comments on the house. We're paying the estate agent to tell us how to best sell the house, not to admire our living arrangements.

We looked at a couple of house that smelt of dog, including one that had a massive dog turd in a fenced off area of the conservatory that was used by the dogs!

It did put us off and while if we have loved the house we may have put in an offer (as we did in our previous house which smelt strongly of cigarette smoke) it would have been well below the asking price due to the extra cost of cleaning etc..

So I would mention it as friendly feedback.

It takes ages to get rid of dog smell (especially if you still have the dog) so it probably isn't worth risking telling them. Maybe suggest the fresh coffee, fresh flowers, baking smells instead.

I wouldn't buy a house with dogs in without stripping all soft furnishings so I would tell them.

We bought our house which previously had a dog. I'm convinced they aired the house before every viewing and turned the heating off to keep the smell down. Once we moved in and turned the heating up just a bit, the place stank. Two months in and I'm resigned to having to wait before we rip the carpets up as we are having major work done. Until then I'm covering the carpet in deodoriser and have cleaned as much as possible.

It is rank.

They ask for feedback , then tell them
Obviously not just a blunt "your house stinks "
But something like " the viewers were mentioned they were put off by the doggy smell "
They probably don't think the house smells , and the smell of dog is very off putting especially if you don't like dogs

I would tell them others have commented on it. I'll bet they don't know. Your nose accommodates when you have a dog/ dogs.

I should also add, we didn't buy this house because we had "The Feeling". We bought it with our heads - location was the main factor.