CAROLINE: If you are worried about it being stinky, it’s probably not. It’s the people that aren’t worried about it being stinky that probably have stinky houses.CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell. And you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.CHRISTINE: Caira?CAIRA: Christine?CHRISTINE: It is that time of year again.CAIRA: Please don’t tell me it’s cleaning time.CHRISTINE: It’s time to clean. Yes, it’s spring-cleaning. So Wirecutter has a ton of cleaning advice, and if listeners haven’t subscribed to our Clean Everything Newsletter, you absolutely should. It’s really great. It has tons of great advice about how to clean a variety of products we recommend, but also just general things in your home. And today we are going to focus on a particularly troublesome aspect of cleaning, getting rid of terrible smells.CAIRA: Yep. We thought it’d be really fun to ask you, our listeners to tell us about some of the most challenging smells you’ve tried to remove and, wow, y’all really delivered.CHRISTINE: So many gross smells.CAIRA: So many. We actually have the perfect guest to bring you the answers. Her name is Caroline Mullen. She’s a staff writer focused on cleaning and organization. She basically spends every workday figuring out how to clean things, and she even recently wrote a piece about how to get rid of gross smells.CHRISTINE: We also have a ton of other experts who know a lot about cleaning because they are experts on cleaning the things that they review. So we had Caroline go out and ask them for their advice on various smell-related cleaning things. So that’s great. We’re gonna get advice not just from Caroline but from a lot of other wirecutter writers. We’ll be right back.CAIRA: Welcome back. Today we’re talking with staff writer, Caroline Mullen, who specializes in cleaning and organizing. Caroline, welcome to the show.CAROLINE: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.CAIRA: So happy to have you.CHRISTINE: Okay, so Caroline, this episode is all about getting rid of the stinky, smelly gross smells in our homes, our cars, maybe our clothing, and we have collected questions from a bunch of listeners. They sent in some really disgusting problems for us to solve today. We’re hoping that you can help answer their burning questions about smells. So we’re going to run this sort of room by room and we’re going to start with the kitchen. Are you ready?CAROLINE: Yes. This is kind of what I do every day, I feel great.CHRISTINE: Okay, so here’s our first listener question.KATAYOUN: Okay, so my name is Katayoun. I live in Jersey City, New Jersey, and my issue is, whenever I cook in this apartment, whatever it is, especially if it’s like steak or even chicken, if there’s any kind of burnt… If there’s any smoke, fish, fish is the worst, that smoke gets and then that smell gets everywhere and then going to work, the smell is in all the clothes. There’s no way to stop it.And I live in a loft, masking it doesn’t work, like putting up a candle. I have filtration systems and I have a fan and nothing works, and it’s winter and I cannot open those windows. So help.CHRISTINE: Ooh, this one’s good. CAIRA: Very relatable.CHRISTINE: Really very real. Okay, Caroline, what do you think here? CAROLINE: So I also live in Jersey City and I had to stop making fried fish tacos because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I also live in a small apartment and the smell is constantly lingering from cooking. Unfortunately, you do have to open your windows, even though it’s winter. Ventilation is the number one thing that’s going to help you combat cooking odors in your home.When I cook, for example, I throw all the windows open, I make my husband stand at the front door and move it open and close to try to get a cross breeze going. Put on the fan above your stove if you don’t have a range hood. My other teammate, Maki Yazawa, she tested a portable range hood to try and deal with this issue.And it seemed really cool and it seemed really promising, but she found that honestly it didn’t work that much better than if you were to just open your windows and turn a fan on.CHRISTINE: Yeah, okay, so that makes sense. What about using an air purifier in your kitchen?CAROLINE: So I talked to Tim Heffernan who writes our air purifier guide, and he said it might help a little bit. Purifiers usually have a small filter that works on light odors for a little while, but people should not expect miracles from air purifiers when it comes to cooking smells.CAIRA: What is a VOC?CHRISTINE: It is volatile organic compounds or VOCs and they are some of these chemicals that’s being released into the air when you’re cooking, and that’s sometimes the smell that you’re smelling. I sometimes use an air purifier if I’ve burned something and that’ll help with the-CAROLINE: It helps with smoke, yeah.CHRISTINE: … with the smoke, yeah. Okay. Well, that’s interesting. All right, so open those windows.CAROLINE: Yes. Also, clean after you cook, a lot of cooking smells will linger in fabrics on your couch, in your rugs, your curtains, everything like that. And I also, when I was talking to Tim about this, he said, make sure you clean the grease off of your floors and your kitchen surfaces too because that will hold a lot of smell.CHRISTINE: Oh, that’s interesting. And this is maybe a challenge for this listener because she lives in a loft and so she can’t shut doors to kind of like keep things from spreading.CAIRA: Yes, she will literally have to clean everything every time she cooks.CHRISTINE: All the time.CAROLINE: It feels like that, but honestly, I’m telling you, opening your windows and getting the air going and making sure that all these fabrics, even if you don’t have to clean them, just get them aired out. It helps a ton.CAIRA: Okay, so we have another listener question about kitchen smells again and fair warning, this one’s pretty gross.ALEX: Hi, my name is Alex and I live in New York. My worst smell scenario happened a number of years ago. I had split a half of a side of beef with a neighbor. I had it stored in a chest freezer. Unfortunately someone unplugged the freezer and the meat defrosted and then proceeded to rot. Three weeks later I was confronted with the overpowering odor of dead flesh in the freezer. We tried to clean it for hours and then days and we were never able to get rid of the smell in the freezer and eventually just threw the appliance out.CAIRA: So what do you think, Caroline? Did he do the right thing by throwing that whole freezer away or was this salvageable?CAROLINE: I mean that would be my answer. Just throw it away. I’m sorry. It’s not worth your sanity. You got to throw the freezer out.CAIRA: We also heard from listeners who had less obvious sources of stench in their fridge or their freezer. Do you have any tips about how to remove odors just in general from the fridge or the freezer that maybe isn’t a dead cow?CAROLINE: Yeah, I often find that you find a rotting green bean in the crisper drawer weeks later, or a hunk of Brie that you thought was still good, but it’s letting off some smells. So I think you need to go back through your fridge, make sure that everything in there is not rotting and deep clean again. Theoretically putting an open box of baking soda in your fridge should work to absorb some odors. Baking soda is a base. It should counteract some of the acidic gases that are coming off of rotting fruit and vegetables.You can also try disinfecting the fridge and make sure that you follow the instructions on the disinfectant. Leave it sit for long enough so that it’s killing any bacteria that’s lingering in there and keep your hard-boiled eggs in well-sealed airtight containers so that when you open the fridge, when you have company over, it’s not just a big waft of egg.CHRISTINE: So embarrassing. Do you have a disinfectant that you like to use in the fridge?CAROLINE: I use our pick, which is a Clorox Clean-Up with bleach because it’s shelf-stable. So when you mix bleach with water to make a disinfectant solution, it degrades really quickly. You have to use it… When you make it you have to use it that day pretty much. But the Clorox Clean-Up with bleach is shelf stable, so I like to keep that because I can use it for a lot longer.CHRISTINE: All right, we have one more kitchen smell. This one is really hard.JANET: Hi, Wirecutter. My name is Janet and I’m from Omaha, Nebraska and I have a stinky smell for you. A few years ago we remodeled our kitchen and our builders installed a built-in trash can into the cabinetry and it’s wonderful because it’s nice and tidy and it’s all a recycling and trash can all in one cupboard. The only problem is there is a heating register right underneath the trash can and so in the summertime it’s fine, but in the wintertime the heat is on a lot and the entire house smells like warm trash.We haven’t really been able to figure out anything to do other than taking the trash out very frequently. So I was wondering if you had any tips on what else we might do to combat that smell? Thank you.CHRISTINE: Oh, Janet, it sounds like your house smells like New York City in the summertime.CAROLINE: I know that smell well.CHRISTINE: All right, well what should Janet do?CAROLINE: Janet, I’m sorry. You got to move the trash. If it’s being heated up every day, it’s got to move. I’m sorry.CAIRA: It’s like the simplest solution, also the worst one.CHRISTINE: I know, it’s sad.CAROLINE: If you’re not open to moving the trash can to a different part of your kitchen, I think just make sure you’re keeping it clean. I know that trash cans that are inside of cabinets can get pretty grimy with the tracks and you might miss something, might miss the garbage can, throw something in there. It’s kind of lingering on the cabinet floor, so keep it as clean as you can.CHRISTINE: And we actually have a guide for that, we will link it in the show notes.CAROLINE: Of course we do.CAIRA: Now let’s talk about another category of smells we heard a lot about from our listeners. Pet smells.CAROLINE: Oh yes.CAIRA: Yeah, next question. Here we go.MARIANA: Hi, my name is Mariana. I’m Italian. I live in France and I’m a huge fan of the show. I work from home as a translator and live with two cats. So litter box odor is a constant battle. I’ve tried almost every kind of litter. The timing is what really gets me. They seem to save the litter box visits for my mealtimes, turning breakfast, lunch, and dinner, into an unwanted sensory experience. I’d love your best advice on what actually works to keep litter box smells under control. Grazie mille. Ciao.CAIRA: Wow, Mariana, I can really relate to this one because my cat’s litter box is on the same level as my bedroom and he also always chooses the worst times to go, like when I’m about to go to bed.CHRISTINE: Inconvenient.CAIRA: So what do you advise?CAROLINE: So I talked to Mel Plaut who is our pet writer and they recommended trying to switch your cat litter. I actually know that several of our team members have switched to our top pick, Dr. Elsey’s.CHRISTINE: I 100% agree. When I had two cats, it was the best cat litter. We got the kind that was for the extra strength or whatever and we really did not have a problem.CAIRA: Really? I need to switch.CHRISTINE: And we live in a small apartment.CAROLINE: So I don’t have cats, but it has been reported to me that this litter does an excellent job of containing odors. And another thing that it does is it forms really tight solid clumps, which makes it easier to scoop and get all that fun stuff out of the box so that there are not lingering odors in there.Another thing that you can do is, if the bin that you’re putting the detritus in isn’t keeping the smells contained, Mel recommends ditching it and just bringing your dirty litter bag straight out to the trash when you scoop-CAIRA: For sure.CAROLINE: Which does suck, but it will help with the smell. I know that there are litter boxes that you can get that are cabinets so that it keeps the smell a little more contained. I think Mel mentioned in the guide that litter boxes with lids can help keep the odor a little more contained, but you just have to make sure that you keep on top of actually changing the litter and scooping also, because it’s like, out of sight, out of mind.CAIRA: I tried that but my cat did not like having a cover.CHRISTINE: It really just depends.CAROLINE: It’s so particular with cats.CHRISTINE: Yeah, they’re very persnickety. Okay, Caroline, one more pet question that, again, I think a lot of pet owners will relate to.SARA: Hi, this is Sara from Westchester, New York. I had a question about pet smells that the owners can no longer smell. This owner would be me. I know my house smells like my dog and my two cats. I have air purifiers, I have scented air fresheners, but I know it’s there. So how do I get rid of a smell that I can’t even sense myself?CHRISTINE: Oh, isn’t this a relatable problem? It’s terrifying. All right, so what would you recommend for Sarah?CAROLINE: Okay, Sarah, I can take up this whole episode talking about nose blindness and whether or not other people can smell your house or smell you. I have two dogs, I know very well what it’s like to be afraid that the house smells like dog. I will tell you at the top that I’ve asked many friends and family, “Does my house smell? Does my house smell?” And they’re always like, “No, your house never smells. It never smells.” And I rarely light candles or use air fresheners. I just try to keep it as clean as possible. And I think just doing whatever you can and knowing that your house is not stinky, it’s probably not stinky… If you’re worried about it being stinky, it’s probably not.It’s the people that aren’t worried about it being stinky that probably have stinky houses. But some of the things that I’ve done over the years with two dogs, I’ve swapped out all the rugs in our apartment to machine washable ones.Rugs hold onto a lot of smells, especially if your dogs or cats are having accidents on the rugs. And if you’re not washing your rugs when you have pets, at least vacuuming consistently, that can be a big contributing factor to lingering smells. Speaking of that, you also want to make sure you’re washing or vacuuming your pets’ beds and anything they lounge on. Pets, when they sit in one place for a while, they start to cook themselves. They get really stinky. So anything that they frequently are lounging on, you should probably wash, you should probably wash it on the same schedule as your bedsheets honestly-CHRISTINE: Like once a week?CAROLINE: I think with blankets or stuff that’s on the couch, like throw pillow covers, maybe every two weeks, once a month. See if it helps with smells.CHRISTINE: So in theory, you might also want to make sure that you have whatever your dog or cat bed is, that it probably has a removable cover that’s easy to wash so you’re not dealing with having to dry some filled thing?CAROLINE: Definitely. Another thing that can help is running a robot vacuum or just regularly vacuuming. This will help cut down on accumulation of dander and hair in corners and baseboards, places you don’t see, because that stuff holds a lot of smell from your animals.Air purifiers will also help. They will collect the dander and the hair which hold a lot of scent. And it’s also worth noting that if you have pets or cats specifically, I think, you should be careful about air fresheners. Mel mentioned that they don’t recommend using any deodorizers because even though they may be toxic to cats, they also kind of just mask smells. They don’t solve the root of the problem. Unfortunately, I hate to be a broken record, but cleaning instead of using a scent is going to be the best way to go.CHRISTINE: We are going to take a real quick break and then we are going to come back, Caroline, with some even more challenging questions. We’ll be right back.CAIRA: Welcome back. With us now is Caroline Mullen, a writer covering all things cleaning and she’s helping us tackle your worst household smells.CHRISTINE: Okay, Caroline, we’re back into our listener questions. We have another category that we had a lot of questions about smells in laundry. This is a huge one. Let’s get into our first question about stinky workout clothes.BARTON: Hey Wirecutter, this is Barton in San Diego. My husband has these workout shirts that are 90% polyester, 10% spandex, and I wash them, I wash them, I wash them, and still the stink from workout comes back, especially when you put them on and they heat up a little bit. So what should I do?CHRISTINE: This is relatable. It’s these synthetic fibers that really hold onto odors, right? Okay. So what should Barton do for his husband’s shirts?CAROLINE: So I think the first thing that I would say is to make sure that you’re washing these items on cold instead of hot. I think-CHRISTINE: That’s kind of counterintuitive, right?CAROLINE: Yeah. I think that people’s knee-jerk is to wash it on hot, that it’s going to kill a ton of bacteria, but with synthetic fabrics especially, you can end up kind of baking the odors into the items. I also talked to Andrea Barnes, who is our resident laundry expert. We have a lot of laundry questions, so we have a full person who’s dedicated to it, and also one of our staff members, Gabriella DePinho, who wrote an article about getting smells out of workout clothes.So some things that you should make sure if you’re not doing already, make sure the clothes don’t sit damp. You should wash them as quickly as you can, which can be annoying, especially if you don’t have a washing machine in your home. But try and get these workout clothes into the wash as soon as possible. If not, let them dry out instead of sitting in the sweat. Turn the items inside out to wash. Yeah, because the inside, if you think about it, the inside is getting the most contact with sweat and odor.Turning them inside out gives them the best chance to have all that contact with the detergent and the water and get clean. Also, you’re going to want to switch to a high quality detergent. This is probably something else I’m going to say a couple of times here. You can reference our guide and use one of our picks. A high quality detergent will have enzymes that break down these smells, especially in cold water. And also maybe counter-intuitively, use less detergent than you think you need. We recommend just two tablespoons actually of detergent.CHRISTINE: Wow. Even for a full big load.CAROLINE: Yes. I was actually recently at a cleaning conference and I heard someone say that if these big companies are recommending you use these small portions, you can be sure you really need small portions. Because I mean, they want to make money. That’s their bottom line. And if they’re recommending you use a small amount, you need a small amount.CHRISTINE: What’s the issue if you put too much detergent in your laundry, what’s going to happen?CAROLINE: It won’t get rinsed out and smells can get trapped inside of the detergent that lingers on the fabrics. Two other things that Andrea suggested. You can pre-treat the really stinky spots with 3% hydrogen peroxide before throwing them in the wash. Just make sure that you do a spot test before and she doesn’t recommend doing this all the time just to protect the integrity of your fabrics.Also something you might not be thinking about. Make sure your washing machine is clean. This is something else I come up with a lot with people asking cleaning questions is being frustrated that they have to clean the appliances that are cleaning things, but washing machines can get a lot of gunk and deposits inside of them and they can actually re-deposit onto clothing and contribute to lingering smells.CHRISTINE: And we also have a guide for that. I’m going to just [inaudible 00:20:21] be like a ping, we’re going to have so many links in the show notes. But yeah, there is a guide for how to clean a front loading washer.CAIRA: Wow, okay, can’t escape it.CAROLINE: Got to clean the things that clean, unfortunately.CAIRA: Clean everything.CAROLINE: Yeah.CAIRA: Okay, next up we have two different but related questions about down parkas. It is that time of year, so let’s hear what’s going on.DEREK: Hey guys, this is Derek calling from Washington DC. I recently did a really intense workout. I was super sweaty and I put on a really nice parka that I wear all the time, but I forgot to put on a sweatshirt over my workout shirt. And now the armpits of my expensive parka smell pretty bad and I’m afraid to do anything to it. Wondering what is the best way to get that odor out. Thank you.ADAM: Hi, Wirecutter team. This is Adam calling from Lisbon, Portugal. I’m calling because we recently had to wash my partner’s puffer jacket, a down jacket. Now whenever it gets wet, or even if he gets a little sweaty or it’s humid as it is often in Portugal, it’s almost like this smell activates and it smells like wet dog. It is foul. What do you recommend? Is it salvageable? It’s a brand new expensive jacket. We really want to save it, but I’m ready to burn it.CAIRA: Don’t burn it. But I know exactly the smell he’s talking about. It’s pretty bad. So what should they do?CAROLINE: Okay, the good news is down jackets can be washed. They can even be washed in your washing machine if you use a delicate cycle. I checked in with our bedding expert, Jackie Reeve, who’s very familiar with down laundering, and we also have a guide on how to wash a down coat. So there’s a couple of things that might be going wrong. So let’s address Derek first with the sweaty parka.I would say that you should try pre-treating the armpits of your parka before you put it in the wash, either with laundry detergent or dish soap. Give it a little scrub, try to get that smell out and put it in for a wash. And then as far as the wet dog smell is concerned, you might’ve used too much detergent or not have gotten all that detergent out. Jackie in the How to Wash a Comforter Guide, mentions that you need to rinse the comforter or anything with down a couple times actually to make sure that you get all the detergent out because all the residue can get on the feathers and make them kind of sticky and smelly.Another thing that might be going wrong is you might not have been able to get it dry enough. And this is tricky, especially with synthetic fabrics and with down because you don’t want to bake it, but if it isn’t thoroughly dried, it can definitely start to smell. So in our guide to washing down parkas, we recommend to air dry if possible, but if that’s not working and it’s not getting dry, you might want to put it in the dryer, just tumble dry on low and make sure that it’s dry when it comes out because you want to get those feathers absolutely dry so that they don’t sit in their dampness.And if you are air drying and you don’t have access to a dryer, maybe let it dry in a warm place like next to a radiator or a wood stove if you’re out in a cabin. And that will help speed up the process and make sure it dries enough before you start wearing it again.CHRISTINE: That’s great, and especially if you’ve spent a lot on this jacket, I think all these tips are good.CAIRA: You don’t have to burn it.CAROLINE: You don’t have to burn it. I really think it’s salvageable and if you can’t get it done, just send it to me in the mail. I’ll give you my address, I’ll get it done.CHRISTINE: All right, so this issue with the stinky down kind of reminds me of a question we often get at Wirecutter. It’s really common, stinky towels. I’ve had this happen before where I’ve washed them and the smell doesn’t go away-CAIRA: It just bakes in further.CHRISTINE: Yeah. You’re like, this still doesn’t smell clean. So Caroline, what do you think? What’s the solution there?CAROLINE: Oh man, this is another one close to my heart. The big thing with mildew and towels is just making sure they get proper ventilation and they get plenty of air around them. I know a lot of people, especially in small apartments, I am one of them. Hooks are the easiest thing to throw towels on, but they tend not to get enough airflow when they’re all kind of smooshed together on a hook on the back of the door. So if you have a towel bar or even like a drying rack and the story I wrote about this, some people were saying in the comments that they have heated towel warmers that help a ton-CAIRA: Like those baskets?CHRISTINE: No, they look almost like a little ladder that’s heated and it goes on your wall.CAIRA: Apparently very popular in Europe.CHRISTINE: Yeah.CAROLINE: The other thing is if they’re coming out of the wash still smelly, you probably need to switch to a better detergent or if you want to use the rest of your detergent and try and amp up the power of it. I have had great success with adding a scoop of borax and running them on a hot cycle. We often don’t recommend washing on hot. However, towels, cotton towels can withstand a pretty good beating in the wash. So if they’re really stinky, you can wash them on hot with a good laundry detergent or add a scoop of borax to your current detergent.CAIRA: Okay, Caroline, we have one final laundry question for you.L: Hello, Wirecutter. My name is L and I am in California. I would like to know how to get rid of urine smell in laundry, maybe for some that are incontinent. Maybe the clothes stay wet for a few days, or I guess stay unwashed for a few days before washing, but just hoping to get some real guidance and effective tips on that.CAIRA: So what’s the best thing to try here?CAROLINE: Urine is tough. It’s one of those smells that really lingers because when it dries down, it gets that distinct ammonia smell that’s very powerful. I talked to Andrea Barnes and she recommended soaking these items in laundry detergent and cold water overnight and then washing on cold. A soak, which is delightfully hands-off, can help a lot more than you think it might. You can even do this in the washing machine. You can fill up the washing machine with cold water, let it run, and leave the item soak in there, and then you can turn it on for a cycle the next day. But sometimes it also takes two tries. You might have to just be consistent with it. It’s just one of those things that just really gets stuck in fabrics. And this is another thing that it’s tempting to use warm water, but that can actually set the stains and smells in there and cook them into the fibers. So I would default to cold water whenever you’re dealing with urine, especially.CHRISTINE: Now we’re moving on to just a real grab bag of problems. So let’s help our listeners. The first one is about a smelly car.DREW: Hey Wirecutter, my name is Drew. I live in Los Angeles and a few years ago I was going to a tailgate and I brought a watermelon in the trunk of my car and it was wrapped in Saran wrap. I promptly forgot about the watermelon, went to the game, and then I remember going on vacation right after that. Well, about a week later, I came back to get in my car to go to work and there was an awful smell in the trunk and I went back there and the watermelon had sort of decomposed and fermented inside of the Saran wrap and created a vinegary fermented smell that I to this day have not been able to get out of the trunk lining of my car. I’ve tried baking soda, I’ve tried scrubbing it with soap and water. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.CHRISTINE: Drew, this could have been me like 20 years ago. I would’ve done this. I totally would’ve done this. All right, so what’s the solution here, Caroline?CAROLINE: Okay, so this happened, even worse to one of my college roommates. She left a Styrofoam cooler full of hamburgers in the back of the car, and she never successfully got the smell out and no one would drive with her. So this is a tough one. It can be particularly difficult to get car upholstery really clean because you can’t remove it and toss them in the washing machine like you can with couch covers, pillows, sheets, stuff like that. I think you’re on the right track however, with baking soda, since rotten fruit can become more acidic and baking soda is basic, which can counteract, neutralize that odor.I would try maybe making a paste of baking soda with dish soap and water and leaving it sit overnight, then scrubbing and rinsing it in the morning with lots of water. Something that I’ve learned a lot about cleaning rugs, thanks to my dogs, is that really rinsing things clean with as much water as you can without damaging something is the best way to really get it out. You can also use an upholstery cleaner for this in order to get all of that water and cleaning solution out the Bissell Little Green that we recommend.They also sell odor specific cleaning solutions that are made for that machine. Yeah, I think that an upholstery cleaner is going to be great for truly sucking all of that stinky, stinky stuff out of the upholstery.CHRISTINE: And would you potentially recommend finding a good detailing shop?CAROLINE: Yeah, I think if all else fails or if you’re just sick of dealing with it and you want to outsource, you might want to get it professionally cleaned and detailed or try replacing that piece of upholstery in the part of the car. Also, you might have luck with spraying a solution of rubbing alcohol or vodka and water. It actually is pretty good at removing odors because it evaporates and takes some of the smell with it, it evaporates pretty quickly. But you might need to get that part of the trunk replaced.CAIRA: Dang, get a new car.CHRISTINE: Just get a new car.CAROLINE: We’re here for you.CAIRA: Okay, Caroline, our next listener question actually came in the form of an email, so I’m going to read a little bit from it. This is from Kate and she writes, “Boy, do I have one for you. We had a mouse get into the corner, lower cabinet where our lazy Susan is. We took everything out and put a trap down, one of those black plastic snap traps. And then the next morning we woke up and there was a trail of blood and no trap.” Spooky, it’s like a horror movie.So somehow the mouse was able to survive temporarily, crawled into an area of the cabinet that wasn’t closed off. And then a week later we confirmed that the mouse was dead as an awful stench started to appear anytime we opened the silverware drawer or corner cabinet. This is like my worst nightmare. So she said that she tried using a vacuum to suction up the trap. She tried using a camera to see where the mouse had possibly gone, but it’s been four weeks and now the smell is definitely lingering. What’s your advice here?CAROLINE: Oh, this is really tragic, for everyone involved, including the mouse. I mean, my first reaction would be find it, find it at all costs. But I talked to our home renovation writer, Doug Mahoney, and he thinks it actually might just be a waiting game at this point.CAIRA: What does that mean?CAROLINE: You kind of just have to wait for it to just-CHRISTINE: You just have to put nose plugs in and just live your life-CAROLINE: Wait for it to decompose and kind of just totally go away.CAIRA: How long could that take?CAROLINE: I mean, luckily it’s small. Mice are small. Again, I mean, my reaction would be like, “I have to find it. I’m renovating the kitchen, if we can’t find this mouse.” But Doug also said you might have some luck with an odor absorber, something like an activated charcoal product or a baking soda based one. He said that he used them pretty successfully in his basement to solve some musty smells, but a rotting carcass he said is another level. So he doesn’t think there’s any guarantee that an odor absorber will completely solve the problem, but it might help, at least in the interim if you can’t find the mouse and you’re just kind of waiting for him to go away.CHRISTINE: So this next question is about an airborne odor. Let’s hear it.ANON: Hey Wirecutter, I’m wondering if you can help me with getting rid of the smell of weed. I have an apartment in a complex full of people who enjoy partaking, and while I have no judgment for them, I do have judgment for the lingering smell. And even though I myself do not smoke, my apartment persistently smells like weed. Do you have any suggestions on how to keep that stench out?CHRISTINE: Oh, this has become a pretty common problem in my neck of the woods.CAIRA: I’m personally invested in your answer here.CHRISTINE: Yes.CAROLINE: Well, I think beyond just being a really nice neighbor and maybe bringing them some gummies, some seltzers instead of something that you smoke. We haven’t tested weed smoke particularly, but we have tested other kinds of smoke for getting those smells out of your home and out of fabrics and stuff.Tim Heffernan has also written about getting wildfire smoke out of your home and running an air purifier constantly in the background will help a lot with smoky smells. Another thing is, of course, ventilate as much as you can without the smoke coming back into your apartment.So maybe point a fan towards the window to let it go out instead of coming back in. If it’s near your front door, for example, you can lay a rolled towel along the crack under your front door. And as far as clothing and soft goods and upholstery, give them a good wash with a good laundry detergent. And when I tested smoke smell removal from clothing, I tested it with cigarette smoke and campfire smoke.I actually found that for things that you can’t put in the washing machine, vodka and water solution works really well to remove odors, spray things, let it dry, spray it, let it dry, and it will pull smells out as it goes.CAIRA: Okay. We’ve made it to our final question. What’s the last thing you’ve bought that you really loved?CAROLINE: Okay, something that I have been buying and rebuying is the Miss Jessie’s Pillow Soft Curls curl cream.CHRISTINE: Okay, tell me more, guys. What is this?CAROLINE: Okay, so I, like a lot of people, have realized from TikTok that I actually do have textured hair and that I have wavy hair that can be coaxed into a curl pattern with the right product. And one of my teammates, Brooklyn White, she wrote about Miss Jessie’s Pillow Soft Curl. She uses it on her kids.I have turned so many people onto this. I use it, my husband uses it, a bunch of my friends, I know a lot of our teammates use it. It’s lightweight, but hydrating at the same time, which I feel like is something that’s really difficult, especially if you have fine hair. Instead of making your hair kind of crunchy and weighed down, it’s really lightweight and you can use a lot of it and still not feel like your hair is weighed down by it. And it smells really good too. It smells like laundry. It smells like fresh laundry, but it’s the best curl cream that I’ve tried and I’ve been on a journey the past couple of years trying to figure it out.CHRISTINE: I love it. Well, thank you so much, Caroline. It was great to have you and I think we should do another one of these. There were actually so many questions that we couldn’t fit into this episode, si-CAROLINE: Say the word, I’m here.CHRISTINE: All right, we’ll have you back.CAROLINE: Thank you.CHRISTINE: Caira, so many smelly questions we just talked about. That was great. I loved having Caroline on the show. She’s a wealth of information.CAIRA: She’s amazing, and she smells really good.CHRISTINE: She did. She smelled pretty good.CAIRA: I had to tell her that immediately. She smells really nice.CHRISTINE: She shared so many tips in this episode. What are the things that really stood out for you?CAIRA: I mean, there’s the clean everything aspect. You really do have to deep clean often, consistently. For me, I shamelessly have been using a hand vac for everything, and I know that’s not good, so I think I need to just invest in a really good vacuum cleaner.CHRISTINE: It will make a difference.CAIRA: Just deep clean my carpets. Maybe get a little attachment so I can do my couch too. I think that’ll make a huge difference. I also liked her tip about mixing the vodka water solution and putting in a spray bottle for things that you can’t necessarily put in the washing machine. And I feel like that could work for some of my upholstery as well as I have a couple coats and stuff that I just can’t toss in the machine.CHRISTINE: Yeah, I think that’s a good one. It was just such a great reminder for me about not using too much laundry detergent.CAIRA: Yes.CHRISTINE: You don’t think about it, and I know this from working at Wirecutter because we’ve talked about it before, but I think I sometimes do use too much laundry detergent and you really don’t need that much. If you’re using too much it can contribute to smelly laundry. I thought that was great. If you are curious about any of the cleaning advice that we shared in this episode, we will have links in our show notes to many of the cleaning guides, as well as the products that Caroline recommended. Thanks so much for listening. We’ll be back next week.CAIRA: Bye.CHRISTINE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Kiel, engineering support from Maddy Massiello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto, Catherine Anderson and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter’s Deputy Publisher and General manager. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor in chief. I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.CHRISTINE: Thanks for listening.CAROLINE: My husband actually said to me recently that, “I just thought that’s what bathrooms smelled like,” that mildew smell. I was like, “No, they shouldn’t smell like that.” You’re doing what you’re supposed to… No.
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