Help me make my bedroom smell nice. Why does it smell so bedroomy?

[Grockle]

I'm fed up with my bedroom smelling so stuffy & unaired.

It is a south-facing room, so gets quite warm but I have blinds that keep most of the heat out.

The windows (bay with 3 big opening windows) are always on the latch so there should be plenty of fresh air. The windows are open every morning & whenever I am at home.

Bed linen is washing every week at 60. I'm currently washing the mattress protector & will wash the pillows tomorrow. The duvet was dry cleaned a few weeks ago.

The carpet is a few years old (at least 4) but doesn't smell & the room is cleaned, vacuumed (including under the bed & in the fitted wardrobe) & polished as often as needed (at least once a week but often 2-3x).

There is no laundry bin in the room, a scented candle & 3 pot plants.

What else can I do?

Sounds like you've got all the obvious stuff covered.

I read on here about wiping fabric softener [lenor/comfort] on your radiators, that is a smell I love, so can see why it would freshen.

Could you try that?

Are sweaty shoes kept in the room?

That's it, secondcoming! I'm beginning to worry that it is in fact me that smells.

There are some shoes but not sweaty... mainly sandals & ballet pumps & they are kept in plastic boxes with lids on, so I don't think it's them.

I'm having a massive clear-out to minimise the amount of stuff. I might try the lenor thing. I generally don't like air freshener things but maybe I need a smelly reed-infuser thing.

Fresh smelling flowers? I put a small flowering hyacinth in a glass vase on the window sil and smells lovely for about 2-3 weeks.

Really easy to do bulbs are cheap and can be grow all year round.

Have you got damp?

Put essential oil on the heaters/radiators, or a bowl of water with some drops of essential oils in it on the heater.

Ah, any chance you have mice?

When we had mice there was an unmistakeable sort of cheesy feet/ hamster cage aroma.

Have a look for droppings.

Do you sleep with the window open? Also try not using the radiator.

Watching with interest. DS1's room smells really bad too. No amount of cleaning/airing gets rid of the smell.

Nowhere else smells. The smell literally hits you at the door.

TSC I had mice in a 5th floor flat so they can definitely get up stairs and can allegedly fit through a space the size of a pencil - sorry.

Have you got a laundry basket in there? Even if you empty them regularly they make bedrooms smell bad...our bedroom smells better since I moved the basket out but now my DH just drops his dirty clothes on the floor where it used to be -in the 'virtual' laundry basket

How old is your mattress? If its more than a year old then maybe it needs a clean
My friend cleaned her year old mattress and it was gross and she uses a thin mattress protector.

Could you please tell me how to clean a mattress? We use a protector and I hoover it but is there something else to do? Thank you.

Try using essential oils, especially lavender, geranium or lemon. I sprinkle them on the radiator plus we have this plug in diffuser thingy that's safe (and apparently more effective) than an oil burner.

My friend used a Kirby Hoover It was hired from somewhere not sure what company though sorry

Do you have a damp problem? Lots of condensation of the windows?

I would rent a carpet cleaning machine and give the carpet a very thorough clean (not now, would take too long to dry, but when the weather is nice and warmer, so you can leave the windows open for a whole weekend to get rid off all the damp of the cleaning process).

Also second aroma therapy oils (you can buy them at Butterbur and Sage - very good quality - or splash out and buy room diffuser from Neom).

Thank you all.

I now have a hyacinth - I stole the one DS was growing

I forgot about essential oils - I will throw some lavender oil about the radiator before I go to bed. I will look for a plug-in thingie.

No damp, definitely no mice (I've had them in before though, in a second floor flat. Yuck), no laundry basket (goes straight in the machine or in DS's laundry basket & his room doesn't smell used).

Mattress is a couple of years old and smells fine. It has a matrress protector on & then an electric blanket too. Both washed today!

No condensation either - the windows are about 18 months old, the whole room has been painted in the past couple of years & deep cleaned several times. Nothing in the room smells, but the air in it smells sort of sleepy.

I can recommend the home fragrances from \link{http://www.kennethturner.com/\Kenneth Turner} - expensive, but worth it IMO

Ages ago I got a 'room cologne' called Glowing Embers (discontinued I assume) from TKMaxx - not specially cheap even then, about £10 iirc, but I liked the smell. I don't use it regularly, still have about 4/5 of the bottle left

But 2-3 little squirts make the room smell divine for hours - mine is about 15' x 12' - & in fact if you do it daily, which I do occasionally, it smells nice all the time

No curtains - wooden blinds, cleaned often.

Seems like you covered all the bases so it could be just the smell of sleeping people.

We co-sleep and DD's cloth nappy can smell a bit in the morning; I find that sometimes opening tge windows isn't enough if there's no draft.

Try leaving your bedroom window open at the same time as opposing ones upstairs to creat a nice fresh draft.