April 14, 2011

any ideas?

Does any else's house smell funny when it's windy outside?

Ok, hear me out. 

It seems as though when it gets especially (and sometimes not even especially) windy outside that our house gets a funny smell. I've noticed it before here and there but found it especially (I've used that word three times already....) bad this past Sunday. We went to my in-law's for dinner and when we came home and I walked in the door there was an immediate odor. I can't put my finger on it exactly - it's not overly strong, it kinda smells mildewy, but then also a little like hay. Neil says that to him it smells like old smoke, like when you walk into a hotel room that USED to be smoking and now isn't but you can still smell the remnants. I'm totally making you want to come over right!? It's Neil's theory (and it does make sense) that it's just stench that's left in the walls from people previously smoking in our house and that for whatever reason when it's windy that smell comes out. I promise I don't have a stinky house, I'm actually really on top of things like that (thank you Bath & Body Works and Scentsy...) but when the wind blows even I can't keep this smell away.  

What on earth is it?!

4 comments:

  1. It probably is smoke. I swear once that smell is there it never goes away. Our place we rented last summer in Saskatoon smelled totally fine and by the end of the summer, after it had got super hot inside it smelled SO bad like smoke. I realized it the most coming back home aFtrr the summer and opening my suit case, it was nasty how much the clothes smelled like smoke.
    Have you guys re painted? Or got the furnace and carpets cleaned? I've been told those are the things that help the most with it, yet the smell will still be in the cealings. So you may find it's always there regardless of what you do.

    Good luck! It's not a fun smell to deal with!!

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  2. Hey Michelle--if it is smoke I may have a solution. :) We had a smoker renting our basement when we bought our house. He wasn't a smoke outside kinda guy, we smelled it every time he lit up. So when we kicked him out, we washed the walls with this amazing cleaner...the name of which is slipping my mind...but you would never know that there used to be a smoker in our house. If you want then name of the stuff, let me know and I'll ask the husband. :)

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  3. Thanks guys! We did wash the walls with TSP (is that what you used Rach?) and repainted. We did all new flooring in the house as well. The house does not smell AT ALL until the wind blows. The other thing that makes Neil think it may be smoke is that when we use a humidifier in the boy's room some gunky stuff kinda gathers on the ceiling too, which I've also gone and washed off. It's most likely smoke because like you said it NEVER leaves but you can really only tell when it's windy. WEIRD.

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  4. Oh gawl, it's ME - not Neil! :)

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Straight up now tell me...