Hot
Posted on June 22, 2007 11 Comments
My apartment smells like something died in it. It reeks like hot garbage. I think it’s the pipes. It has to be the pipes. We’ve cleaned everything else: we got rid of all the old food in the fridge, ran the dishwasher, emptied the trash cans, cleaned out the cat litter box and the turtle aquarium, bleached the bathrooms, and opened the windows … yet the smell lives on. It’s been a week with the smell and all we can think is that it must be the pipes.
We believe we’ve isolated the stench to the kitchen, so I tried pouring bleach down the drain. It did nothing. We’re running out of Oust! and Febreeze.
We haven’t really been running the air conditioner during the recent heatwave because we work all day and it’s relatively cool at night, so I wondered if the heat could have affected our drainage system. I googled “stinky pipes” and apparently when you don’t use your sink regularly, sewer gasses can seep up into your apartment. That sounds healthy. They offer some baking soda solutions, but we threw our box of baking soda away, thinking it may have trapped odors.
The next site says that for a cheap stinky pipe fix you can add some salt to boiling water and pour it down the drain to neutralize the smell. I’m going to try this one and let you know how it goes. I might chase the salt mix with vinegar for good luck. Until then, perhaps I should invest in a clothespin for my nose, like in the cartoons. That seems like the only fix!
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11 Responses to “Hot”
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June 22nd, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
We had this problem last year. Part of the issue was the garbage disposal which we cleaned out. The rest was the drain.
First we poured down bleach. Then we left 1/2 box of baking soda in there overnight. After washing that down, we threw a whole lemon in there and ground it up with the disposal. That ended up taking care of it.
June 22nd, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
I bet it’s coming from your drain. You could try ammonia to help the smell or Drano in case something is actually clogging it.
June 22nd, 2007 @ 5:12 pm
I agree with the disposal – I had that problem last year with my apt. Then I realized it didn’t really work. It SOUNDED like it worked and ground up the food….But no. I found a ton of my roomie’s old (nasty) cereal, plus some limes from coronas and just more disgusting stuff…
June 22nd, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
Hmmm… we don’t have a garbage disposal, so it’s not that. But I still think it’s the pipes! I’ll have to tell you if the salt worked when I get home today.
Nicole
June 22nd, 2007 @ 6:07 pm
A half cup baking soda, followed by 1 cup of vinegar, followed by a pot of almost boiling water. It did the trick for me.
June 23rd, 2007 @ 2:05 pm
Do you suppose it could be that a small animal got inside your walls and died? The likelihood that it’s your pipes is very slim.
June 24th, 2007 @ 3:52 am
I agree. You could have a small animal trapped within your walls. I had this happen to me last summer when a possum became entrapped in the walls of my bedroom closet. It took about a week before we determined where the horrible stench was coming from. The summer heat only intensified the scent and spread it throughout the apartment. I suggest that you run the air conditioner during the day while you’re at work, this will probably make it a little bit easier for you to determine where the scent is actually coming from, as no air (warm air) circulating will only make the scent over power the entire apartment.
June 24th, 2007 @ 5:14 pm
The trap under your sink is supposed to prevent gases from renentering.
Try looking for maybe mold/ mildew somewhere too.
June 25th, 2007 @ 4:48 pm
I second Katie’s recommendation of vinegar and baking soda, followed by boiling water. It works wonders. If the smell remains, it’s probably not your pipes.
You don’t have any vengeful (or practical joker) friends that would do something really bad like hide nasty stuff in your apartment or anything?
June 26th, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
We once had a horrible smell in our kitchen. We also had our washer/dryer in the kitchen. Turned out that a bird had made a nest in the dryer vent and then died from the heat (we assume). We had to have someone remove the poor thing. But that solved the problem. Perhaps you have a similar situation?
June 26th, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
The salt has killed off 90% of the smell, but there’s still a bit of a lingering scent, so I’m going to try the baking soda/vinegar combo. I think since the salt flushed out most of the smell, it’s not an animal or practical joke or anything like that. Thanks guys!