Three Reasons DIY Odor Removal Fails

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People have been swapping do it yourself odor removal tips for decades. A little white vinegar and baking soda will work wonders on tomato juice, but it won’t work for deep set odors. If you’re up against a time limit, consider these reasons that DIY odor removal fails. You may be able to compensate, or you’ll know that it’s time to call a professional.

1. The odor’s real cause is still around

Most often DIY odor removal fails because the source of the odor is still around. If there’s a rotten egg under your sink, cleaning the sink won’t really help the source of the problem. You could scrub the kitchen floor. You could clean out the inside of the sink, wipe it down. You could let the smell of cleansers and soap overpower the egg smell for a little while. It will definitely help! But until you get the egg out of there, you’re always going to have an odor problem.

A rotten egg is easy to find. Other scents may be less simple to track down. Mildew in a carpet will make the whole house smell a little rank and damp. Tracking it down and spot-treating it is almost impossible, however. Most DIY cleaning efforts don’t extend to everything in the house that might be a cause of odor. Only professional odor removal services take it to that level.

2. The odor has settled onto multiple surfaces

The source of the odor has to be gone in order for you to have a hope of taming that scent. If it’s been present for a long time, you may find that objects in the room carry the smell now. The scent can sink into porous material and continue to be released even after you’ve cleaned the source. Finding a DIY solution that will handle set-in smells in fabrics, tile grout, and drywall is a major challenge. Professional equipment can clean a variety of materials without damaging them. Business owners and homeowners just don’t have access to the same level of equipment and training to handle multiple contaminate surfaces.

3. Large scale DIY may not be cost effective

Many do it yourself odor removal tips are quite expensive in the long run. It simply doesn’t matter because you’re only treating a small area of your carpet or home at a time. When you have a large, difficult to find source of odor (or the odor has contaminated many objects or a wide area) it suddenly becomes much less cost effective to try to handle it yourself. You can get a professional to do a better job than you could do if you tried to scrimp on the supplies.

DIY odor removal is great for common, easy to clean problems. You can get rid of stains and odor causing bacteria as easily as anything. For large problems or particularly pungent odors, however, you’re going to run into at least one of the problems listed above. When you get out of your depth, don’t suffer an unpleasant odor: call a professional.