To not be able to eat at home

[LilyOfTheValley25]

I bought our first house with my bf about 9 months ago. I have found it very difficult to eat in the house, especially food prepared there. The house had been empty for 2 years before we bought it. I tbink the previous occupant was s heavy smoker with a dog. I have scrubbed the house within an inch of its life replaced tbe curtains which were old and greasy snd some of the carpets, but everything feels contaminated and smells funny to me, but nobody else can smell it. I live solely on ready prepared stuff from supermarkets and takeaways. It has made me put on loads of weight and my savings are drained. I have been informed thst my job will be redundant in a month snd my gp has told me, no discussion that i have been on sertraline too long flr a 25 year old and stopped it. I was taking it for very obvious situational workplace anxiety. This has made things 100x worse. I hate being in the house alone. It feels dirty and gross.

You probably need to go see your Gp sounds like a mental health concern, maybe ocd or something . Sounds tough on you. Sorry you are seeing your gp ask to be referred on maybe to a mental health nurse.

I can't advise on anxiety but some practical suggestions.

Open windows at every opportunity and all cupboard /wardrobe doors at the same time doors so fresh air gets into them.

Bring your own snells into the house. Don't use air freshener but get some nicely scented, correct name escapes me just now, but the scented oils things with the long sticks, and put in bathrooms and hallway. Fresh flowers. Get rid of any old still remaining carpets and just keep the bare floors until you can afford new flooring. Bake a cake. Use fabric conditioner. If you've a garden, plant some heavily scented flowers or rose bushes. If your oven was there from previous owners time, get it professionally cleaned. Paint some rooms to refresh.

I know exactly what you mean about eating in an environment that feels contaminated by someone else’s dirt — I lost a lot of weight when we bought a house that was in a bad state when we moved in because I didn’t want to eat food prepared here. We ended up ripping out all carpets and hiring a heavy-duty deep clean service (the kind that does crime scenes!).

Sounds like it’s psychological now. Try following the sanitisation guidelines for commercial kitchens then you know it’s clean - wipe down all worktops, leave to dry then spray with sanitizer/bleach which meets the bs standard (Lidl kitchen spray with bleach does) then let dry naturally. Place will smell of bleach but that’s hygienic. Then make food that has a homely smell, bread maybe, you need to get it smelling of your food

Urgh I would feel exactly the same.

I would absolutely not do as a PP suggested and get a load of fake scented stuff because it will simply mix with the horrible odours and make an even worse one

Did you scrub with bicarb, its the best for neutralising odours?

And your GP shouldnt just stop sertraline, that is dangerous. Are you tapering down?

OP has been there 9 months. I doubt her problems are due to a genuine lack of cleanliness in her home.
OP has become wrongly convinced her home is contaminated. This won't be fixed by additional cleaning. In fact, that will exacerbate the problem. The aim is for the OP to accept her home is clean and hygienic, rather than keep chasing solutions to a problem that is highly unlikely to exist.
You do need to revisit your GP, OP.

I couldn't get rid of the heavy smoker stench until i repainted the whole house. Sugar soap every thing else.

It depends. I am extremely sensitive to odour, Im like a hound dog, I can smell things way away from me, quite subtle smells, like someone eating bread and butter over the other side of a busy big office for example

You will still be able to smell some of this stuff, so as soon as that is gone completely, that will help OP. And she shouldnt have been taken off her AD's like that.

The op needs a psychologist not cleaning advice

If you still have the any carpets, take them up. Scrub the floorboards until you can only smell wood and soap. Strip any wallpaper and scrub walls. Keep windows open at all possible times. Buy a load of those anti smell candles. You can get special ones for smokers.

Possibly. But a physical cause is unlikely to present itself only in her home. She would struggle in her office, in shops, transport etc, and would be put off all foods, not just home cooked ones.
The problem with 'fixing' behaviours is that they legitimise the anxiety and keep it front and centre as people become obsessed with chasing a resolution, rather than working on no longer perceiving a problem.

Perhaps you should see a psychiatrist to assess your treatment plan @LilyOfTheValley25

No GP would suddenly stop Sertraline .
DD had to have 9 months of tapering after being on it for 4 years.
It’s dangerous to stop it suddenly.
You need to see a different gp urgently as you need help.

Well no because grime and dirt and smoking and dog smells arent really present in my office or most offices or shops, cafes etc

Its in her home and you will be able to smell it for years to come unless its neutralised. We disregarded many houses before buying this one because of smokers unfortunately. Its really hard to get the stench out and its a lot of effort and money to strip everything back, like others say, even the floor boards need scrubbing, its too much work.

The fact she doesnt have a problem outside of the home means it is the smell of the home, pure and simple.

OP is very unlikely to get referred to a psychiatrist.

Did you miss the first part of my sentence where I said I couldn't offer advice on anxiety??

I don't need a lecture from you.

I meant that if the OP had an extremely strong sense of smell, so much so she can smell lingering odour after 9 months in a clean aired home, that others cannot, she would be highly likely to know she had this physical anomaly, and would struggle with day to day smells outside her home as well.