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?!

[Ilovewillow]

Do as my husband did with his parents - tell them "it stinks"!

[Katie0705]

Agree! 😀

[dudsville]

I would say that they might suspect but might not be certain. I presume my house smells of dog but I can't smell it unless it's humid when I come home or they got wet on their walk. As for whether or not you tell them. 1) would they be able to really fix the problem? My two lick one of our sofas. Pretty much that sofa is going to smell. Believe me, as soon as we can afford it I will buy a lick proof sofa! Buying a new sofa is a huge hurdle whereas washing dog blankets and towels, vacuuming, cleaning surfaces and opening windows are all free but one needs the strength and ability.
2) In your experience how much would it affect the sale of the property? We put an offer on a place that smelled terrible, really, really terrible. We presumed we understood the source and would be able to rectify it. In the end someone put an offer in before us, so we didn't have to manage that but it didn't phase us.

[CountessOfStrathearn]

You could mention that one of the viewers said they'd want their offer to take into consideration replacing all the carpets to get rid of the dog smell, so a little less direct for you than "Your house smells".

[gobbin]

We looked at a house that stank of fags. Didn't put in an offer because having to recarpet and redecorate was the cash-clincher on a tight budget. Some (richer!) friends of ours bought it in the end and had to gut it from top to bottom.

[listsandbudgets]

Probably best to tell them. At least they can do something about it.

I got all sorts of feedback when I sold earlier this year including that my house was not modern so they weren't interested any more. It was advertised as a Victorian cottage, what did they expect

[RhodaBull]

I have no idea whether my house smells of dog or not, but if I were trying to sell my house then a word from the estate agent would be entirely appropriate.

What puts me off is cooking smells. I went with dm to view a flat for her a few years ago and we were both nearly retching because the occupant had cooked fish of all things for lunch. The estate agent said he was certainly going to tell the woman that if she wanted a sale then not to cook a boil in the bag cod lunch!

[Lulioli]

Little ol me? Well I'm just a poster you ve bullied on Mumsnet. Anyway good luck with dog stink

[Katie0705]

I interpreted Betsy's comment as meaning to 'think outside the box' when buying a house. I have two small dogs and smoke, but also paranoid about smells. So much so, I air the house daily, have laminated floors, and vacuum daily including the furniture, change the sofa and chair throws daily, and wash the floors. The dogs get brushed most days, as this makes a big difference to smell levels, and washed if they have got really dirty out walking, or have had a lovely roll around in fox poo 😬 The oil in dog fur is a devil for causing a smell, that's why I ditched having carpets years ago. If I was moving into a new home that had a strong doggy smell, I would definitely change the carpets, as cleaning just doesn't work.

I think dog- keepers can loose their sense of smell, and I would be mortified if my home smelled doggy! I would hope that a friend would tell me though.

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

[SewSlapdash]

I'm another one who would not buy a house which smelled of dog unless it was absolutely perfect in all other respects. Even then my offer would factor in ripping up the carpets immediately and possibly also sanding and/or replacing wooden floors.

Once it's there the smell is nigh on impossible to get rid of to the satisfaction of anyone who is not a dog person.

[DurhamDurham]

If it's feedback that you've been given then you need to pass it on.
Our house is on the market and we get feedback, it's not always exactly what you want to hear but I still want to know.
We haven't started looking at houses yet but when we do houses that smell of pets or cigarettes will put me off. It does take a long time for those smells to dissipate as they're ingrained in the carpets and walls.

[GabsAlot]

i hate dog smell but i have a cat so mine prob smells of wee

one day there wont be estate agents not that they do anything worth thousands of pounds

[Katie0705]

Oh yeah you're the one who hates her 7 year old, I remember

Newtscamander....I think you have just exposed your 'nasty' side by your response.

Let's keep things pleasant

[SlowJinn]

I have a teacup Yorkie and I am convinced he doesn't smell. He has a bath with baby shampoo every week and is brushed daily. However the food he eats smells like gone off bacon and if the weather is fine, he eats outside. If someone came to view my house just after I'd decanted the dog food into his bowl in the kitchen, they would definitely be put off. Or think I had a dead body bricked up somewhere in the house.

I would gently suggest a Yankee candle and some Fabreze to your vendors.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

Isn't this something covered in estate agency training?

Yes ooh that's what you do. You budget new carpets. Big deal, when you factor everything in. As for this comment, yes a big deal worth about £5j off the asking price.

You want to try living in a flat above what used to be a goat shed though.

[JenniferYellowHat1980]

£5k

[newtscamander]

I've worked as an estate agent for 2 years and this is the first time I've had feedback about stench in a house that wasn't a rental or a reposession. Landlords can usually be spoken to a lot more bluntly, repos obviously it comes with the territory. This is a half a million pound house with quite, er, demanding owners so I decided to seek advice before Monday.

[newtscamander]

And I have a lot more responsibility now in a new office, so if I lose the clients it would be my fault. Its tricky to have to tell people such sensitive matters about their home and lifestyle.

[4Roseycheeks]

I think you are a dogist lot. Nobody has thought about how the dog feels... Imagine what they think about human smells! If your dog shows a marked reluctance about a prospective new home - won't go through the front doorway, lifts his leg on the Axminster or chews the leg off the Bechstein grand, then think on this:

"Olfaction, the act or process
of smelling, is a dog’s primary special sense. A dog’s sense of smell is said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans. In fact, a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million".

The sellers may have knocked off granny and buried her under the stairs.. Or done what the ghastly Dr. Marcel Petiot did in Paris in the 1940s, I advise you not to look at murderpedia.org/male.P/p/petiot-marcel.htm , but I expect that you might... Imagine moving in there and finding the boiler blocked. The point being that you can never be sure what you'll find in a house you buy. We once found a real, existing 18c secret tunnel leading away from the house, under a road and on under the church graveyard. Oh yes we did.... Oh yes we did! And when we sold the house the new owners found an unexploded Nazi incendiary bomb lodged in the rafters.
Dogs? We had 8 English Setters there at one stage - but bugger the dogs, it's the humans you should worry about!

[Believeitornot]

Just keep it factual. "Viewers have fed back that they don't like X/y and the smell of the dogs. I appreciate you might not be able to smell it but we have had the feedback a few times. I think it would be a good idea to take precautions such as airing the rooms and keeping the heating down"

[Zaurak]

Having once helped my sister deep clean both a house that reeked of fags and one that reeked of dogs, you sure as hell can smell it.
Fag smoke seeps into everything. It coats all surfaces, soft and hard, in a witches brew of toxic shit. This 'third hand smoke' is nasty enough that cats who live in homes with smokers have higher cancer rates from ingesting it when they lick their coats.

Dogs smell too. People seem oblivious to smells. If you smoke, even outdoors, I guarantee you that you, and your house, smell of smoke. If you have dogs, your house smells of dog. It might utterly reek of dog or just have a dint doggy whiff, but it smells of dog.
It's a bit like those threads where people insist they don't smell despite bathing once a week. The British are polite and would rather die than tell someone they smell.

The house I helped my sister renovate smelt ... Beyond dog. The floors were saturated with dog pee. We had to rip out the floors and the walls and the ceilings and replace them all.

If you want to be diplomatic, why not give them general feedback? " buyers have said they love the windows out onto the garden, so let's put fresh flowers to draw the eye there. A few also said they could smell dog, so lets se if we can reduce that - it's these little things that sell.' Etc.

[Muskateersmummy]

It's your job to tactfully tell them. I am very conscious of this as a dog owner and frequently do things to ensure there's no dog smell and ask friends (who I trust to be honest!) if there's a smell of dog when you come in our home. Because if you live with a smell you no longer smell it, I would bet they don't know

[WhatamessIgotinto]

OP I was an estate agent for years and sometimes you have to tell vendors things they don't like, it's part of the job I'm afraid. I would just give them honest feedback from the viewers and take it from there.