DS's friends say our house smells

[fruitstick]

I know it does but I'm mortified. DS's friends are also quite a bit wealthier than us with bigger houses etc but I don't want DS to feel he can't bring people round.

We keep the house clean but have a dog and two cats. The cats have litter trays upstairs which don't help.

I blame our hallway as no fucker puts their shoes away (DS & DH) and there are loads of coats (mainly DH's).

I have the next week off work so was planning on a big clean up anyway.

What do I need to be doing.

I know the dog on the sofa means we need to wash the cushions more regularly than we do. I'm not as religious about cleaning as I could be.

But tell me what I need to be doing.

Your son needs to get new friends. Nobody with an ounce of decency would say that. Comes from the parents usually.

Basically, I need to get off my lazy arse.

why is this your job to fix? It’s a household issue, surely?

I clean our litter tray completely disinfect etc every week, wash floors hoover daily including sofas. On sunny days I put the sofa cushions outside for a bit, our windows are open all year round.

Making sure the house is clean will cut down on smells.

I think this is harsh. Yes, it's not polite but some kids have a much more 'say-what-you-see' brain-mouth connection that tells you more about immaturity and impulsivity than snooty-ness and malice.

Windows open all year around even in winter, always makes the house feel so much fresher.

under our cats litter tray we used to put a large puppy training pad (cheap ones from b&m) it catches any spills and wet paws before they touch the carpet or other surfaces. Cat pee stinks, now ours are older we’re lucky they can go outside, also as I’m sure you know if the tray isn’t clean (cats are fussy buggars!) they will find other areas around the house. I’m sure DH doesn’t want your children called names or to be known as the stinky house so hopefully that might make him help tidy up. It should be a joint effort and not all left to you. We have two cats and one dog, I hoover twice a week and the whole house is cleaned every week with all beds changed, all windows opened daily and friends always say if it wasn’t for the pets and their beds you wouldn’t know they were here

Take out any cat mess as soon as you can, I have a charcoal disk inside their tray as it's hooded and we don't have issues with cat smells. It's probably the litter cat poo stinks.

So sorry for your loss, OP.

When my first dog got old he got very smelly, and I got a pet deodorant spray that really helped. I also found shampooing the carpets every couple of months made a massive difference. My carpet shampooer has an attachment for doing upholstery. I've never used it, because I have leather sofas, but if it's half as good on upholstery as it is, it'd be brilliant.

But I think the litter trays are probably 90% of the problem. No matter how clean they are, I can always smell them the minute I walk into a house (I used to have a job that involved several home visits a day, so I've been in a lot of houses!).

Definitely parental, usually snotty nose kids.

The thing is, cat owners generally love their cats more than they love strangers' opinions of their cats. No one loves a litter tray. But it's often the price you pay for having a cat.

And healthy cats don't smell.

You just have to be really on top of them. Remove any waste straight away and put it in a sealed bin/bag. It's wasteful though. Cats aren't the most environmentally friendly pets to have.

We have a dog and three cats (including a kitten). The animals all have free-range of the house and are allowed on beds and sofas as they wish.

Floors are cleaned every day - carpets are vacuumed and hard floors swept and mopped. Sofas are sprayed with like a fabric shampoo once a week and we do the carpets once a month. Windows open everyday no matter what the weather and we use scented wax melts too.

Throws on the sofa that are washed weekly and all bedding is washed weekly too. Shoes are kept in cupboards or in the porch - the same with coats. It definitely helps.

I too would think it will be the cat litter. We had an automatic air freshener on the wall above the litter tray and I used to do extra sprays, manually, every time I scooped the contents of the litter tray out.

Plus if the cat sometimes sprays on DS clothes, I would check carefully if the cat has sprayed in corners of your house that you haven't noticed. They do this if they aren't happy - or they will return to spots used before because they can smell it, even if you think it has been cleaned I presume they are both neutered, if they are 10, but if they aren't, the pee smells worse

@fruitstick

dont allow your dog on the sofa and get rid of the litter trays

🤣 no definitely not home visits. I have family and friends, with and without pets, all of whom I love. But I don't love their pets. I'm not a pet person. Somehow, most people who have pets realise that does not tell you everything you need to know about me as a human being!

I have a.dog, besides all.of the above keep your dog clean, mines groomed every 6 weeks and I rinse off dirty paws and if he's really grubby between grooms a bath with some mild fog shampoo..I also use a doggy deodorant I'm always bing told how nice he smells.so must work. I just give him a quick spritz once or twice a week at most

Cats stink, especially with litter in the house. It will definitely be that. I say this as a cat owner myself, I hate the smell of my house because of them

You can’t escape pet smells. You’ll be noseblind to it but others won’t. Cleaning the pets regularly as well as their beds/furniture and always litter tray can help a bit but ultimately people will still know it’s a pets house. I say this as a pet owner.

My daughter came home from her gf’s house recently and I knew instantly they had a dog and that it was a GSD because they have quite a distinctive smell. It just emanated from her clothing and it does choke me up.

also worth remembering some people have a more sensitive olfactory system (me) and will notice all the little smells that most people won’t. It’s not a gift

Just another thought OP, do you have a (non-pet-owning) good friend who you could ask over to come and have a good sniff around and maybe help you identify the source(s) of the smelliness?

I am a very smell-sensitive person, and we ended up getting a robot self-cleaning cat toilet because I couldn’t handle the litter tray smell. It was expensive but worth it, automatically cleans itself every time they use it and we only have to take out the contents maybe once/week. No smell as long as you do that and change the litter every other week or so.

My friend says this about her house and says she doesn't know why.

I'm too polite to tell her it's because her house is filthy! Theres dirt on all the skirting boards, the staircase handle is disgusting, the bathroom (ugh don't start me), all door friends need spraying and cleaning.

Personally I would get a house cleaning team in first. Get the whole place professionally cleaned. Get the carpets done too. Wash every single coat immediately and store shoes out the back not in the hall (or in the bedrooms in their own wardrobes)

100% the litter trays will smell. There's no excuse, you simply HAVE to remove poo as soon as it's delivered and the whole thing needs emptying and replacing at least every 4th day. (possibly sooner)

I might add, I'm reading your post and viewing my own house with disgust at the minute as it's below my normal standards!!!

No I don't clean the litter tray out as much as I should. Maybe I need to switch to cheaper litter (I use ever clean) but change it more frequently

Ever Clean is clay based isn't it??
I think clay based litters absolutely stink to high heaven the second they get urine on them. You could try a wood based litter - I have that now and it is way better.
My trays get emptied and washed out twice a week (even though the cat litter - Cats Best Smart Pellets - claims you can leave it in for a month and just scoop and top up - can you hell!!).
As soon as one of them poops I remove the poop and flush it down the toilet because it stinks and if you leave it, the smell ends up permeating everything very quickly.
If one of the cats is pissing on your son's clothes, I'd like to bet it's not the only place they are pissing and there are possibly hidden bits of carpet somewhere they are pissing on. It also means that the cat doesn't think the litter tray is clean enough so you really do need to clean it more.

I wouldn't want litter trays upstairs to be honest - so maybe try to find another place for them.

What are the animals eating? Sometimes the wet food stinks to high heaven too so you have to be quite religious about removing any left overs when they have finished eating rather than have it sitting around for a couple of hours.

If you have pets, your home will never smell as clean and fresh as someone who doesn't have pets. You really do need to keep on top of it.
I think you've just had a very very hard time and it's all slipped a bit. The other two people living in your home also need to shape up and do their bit...

i bought a rug doctor spot cleaner as my dog makes furniture smell. I now cleaner the sofa and his bedding every couple of weeks and the colour of the water is shocking😱. I’ve also a dehumidifier which has a purifier function that also makes the place smell better. It’s an added chore with pets but it is worth it.

We uses to wash our dogs and long haired cat once a month. A good rub down with damp cloth in between and of course daily brushing/combing.
We used covered cat tray and changed litter every 2 days with poo picked up couple times a day.
Floors were cleaned every day (hard floor downstairs) and no dogs on stairs or upstairs.

To some extent, everybody’s house smells and you can’t smell it yourself. I never think my house smells. I do not have pets. Wash everything regularly but still….
Years ago my daughter had a friend. I thought this friend had a house that smelt a bit strange.
I took my daughter and her friend out for the day and they had identical coats that they put it the boot of the car. They took the wrong ones out and immediately realised they had the wrong ones by the smell. They both said ‘this is yours. It smells of your house”. The reply by both of them was “my house doesn’t smell! “ 😀