Oh man. Boiled vinegar works great, but it’s the most violent smell in the world. Don’t directly inhale it while it’s boiling — it hurts your nose so bad, you can feel it in your ears.

I have lots of fragrant plants in my garden, including patchouli. On a hot day you can smell it as you approach the garden. At my back door I have herbs such as basil, rosemary, lemon balm, and several varieties of mint. Picking a few leaves and wafting them around the room will disspell most odors.

I prep my microwave oven for cleaning by putting water and lemon juice in a little bowl, then running the oven on High for 2 minutes. The scented steam loosens stuck on food and knocks out the cooking odors. After I clean the oven, I stick the bowl back in on High again for a minute to finish off.

My husband and I have live in a World War 2 era apartment with no bathroom ventilation. Worse yet, all the rooms are accessed through a single hallway running the length of the apartment. This means that when either one of us sits and delivers, so to speak, there’s almost a visible miasma hovering about the bathroom for several minutes. We’ve tried home remedies like burning a match, but the combined odor was actually worse, especially when it clung to us.

We read about a product called Just a Drop in a business magazine and risked CDN$9 on it. It seems to be a eucalyptus scented highly concentrated deodorant/disinfectant and works incredibly well. It doesn’t matter whether you squeeze a drop of it in the bowl before or after use as it does a phenomenal job of actually neutralizing the odor, leaving only a bit of that eucalyptus scent behind.

Mary: that Just a Drop thing sounds like a much-needed product. Do you know of a retailer in the US that sells it?

http://www.justadrop.net/

Tips on cleaning, stain removal and home-made air freshners

Saw this on 43folders.com and thought it was useful. Cleaning and Stain Removal on doityourself.com…

Dealing with the aftermath of salmon

We have salmon for dinner fairly often, and sometimes the aroma lives on after dinner is finished. I just found this pointer on 43 Folders, and it seems like it’s worth a try next time we run into the problem.

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How to combat bad smells (and clean stains)

If you’re still smelling the fish you grilled for last night’s dinner over morning coffee, boiling vinegar and water helps, according to a how to de-stinkify anything page at web site DoItYourself.com. This reminds me of blogger Matt Haughey’s…

How to combat bad smells (and clean stains)

If you’re still smelling the fish you grilled for last night’s dinner over morning coffee, boiling vinegar and water helps, according to a how to de-stinkify anything page at web site DoItYourself.com. This reminds me of blogger Matt Haughey’s…