Musty troubleshooting

[cimorene]

There's now a musty smell in the whole house and not just the (possibly water damaged) sun porch and parts of the garage. The doors from these areas have been left open at all times for a month or more without the whole place being aired out but also there's construction dust everywhere, wood and cement and tile, from the new bathrooms.

However, very soon the new bath and kitchen in my mother in law's wing will be complete and Wax and I will move in there, and the construction will all move upstairs to the attic on our side.

But when I say we'll move in, we're not unpacking our stuff; we'll be camping out of bags and boxes with just a few chairs, a bed, and a sofa again for (hopefully only) a few more weeks. This is because a) it will start to get too cold for MIL to remain in her summer cottage come fall and b) all her stuff and all our stuff, in boxes, are currently occupying most of the living space that's not needed for construction.

So. 1967 house (on MIL's side). Construction dust, pervasive musty smell, packed boxes everywhere that can't fully be moved out of the way... anybody got some experience or advice for dealing with the smell in the short term, until the construction's over and it's possible to clean and air out everything properly?

Comments

[yvannairie]

This is gonna be the most hippie answer possible but bottles of essential oil cost about 8-12€ and you can put a few drops inside a humidifier/a bowl of water (I actually use a tealight holder) somewhere near a draft has helped me with dusty/musty smells and even cigarette smoke. You can also make your own infusion from airdry clay or use a stone bowl if you already have fairly humid air.

[cimorene]

That's not a bad idea, once we get more settled in and have been able to vaccuum everything and so on - at least to help in the airing-out stage with lingering smells.

[princessofgeeks]

I had the musty/mildewy smell in my new rental house and I think a great deal of it was from wet leaves that had piled up everywhere outside the house. Do you have something similar?

Also we had to start using a dehumidifier when air conditioning season began and that helped a great deal too.

My body reacts badly to scents or air freshener overlaid on the underlying smell, so I can't help you there. But luckily for us there was an underlying problem that we could solve.

For me, when the leaves were removed and the ground and the stem wall dried out, the smell went away. Maybe in your case the construction has exposed walls or subfloors to the air that have been enclosed for a long time? Letting the smells escape?

Good luck! Eyes on the prize! By Christmas you are going to be enjoying it all so much. Hang in there.

[cimorene]

There isn't anything like that - nothing exterior, no foreign garbage that could simply be removed around the outside of the house... however, the old style earthen basement on one side has cardboard boxes of the extra lots of ceiling tiles and gutter pipes and unfinished wood shelves holding buckets and tools; and the finished bits and garage probably have some stuff in them that's hanging onto damp as as well so clearing out as much biodegradable stuff as possible and washing the rest with bleach might do us a lot of good.

However, I'm quite sure that all of the smell isn't originating in the basements, unfortunately. We haven't been able to peel the nasty old vinyl flooring out of the sun porch yet, but I'm afraid there's moisture trapped under there as well as possibly inside the walls, yuck.

[princessofgeeks]

If there is moisture in the walls or under the porch tile, that would be a likely culprit, I agree.

Good luck!!!

Maybe in the short term a dehumidifier might help. Ours is really loud white noise so we only run it at night.

[cimorene]

I'm afraid I'm going to need multiple dehumidifiers before we're done with this stuff! Probably not practical until the room isn't full of piles of tools and construction materials... but now that I think about it, the basement doesn't extend under the porch, so I guess we need to figure out some way to access down there to check for water damage. Fingers crossed...

[phosfate]

Dehumidifier. You can rent a really good one for less than the cost of buying a sorta good one, and when you're done with it the men will take it away so you don't have to dodge it for the rest of your life.

[cimorene]

I did not know that like industrial-strength or super dehumidifiers were a thing and I really hope I can also rent one here.

[phosfate]

They are, and they work a treat. NOISE is a possible issue, depending on your tolerance levels.

[cimorene]

I'm able to grit my teeth and bear it as long as there are no cats with their claws near my sensitive bits when the machine comes on.

[phosfate]

They will probably run and hide.

[cimorene]

They often do, the issue is just if they were on my lap or perched on my chest at Time of Launch. Then they have a tendency to dig in with their back feet in order to vacate the area faster, which has been known to scar.

[phosfate]

Yeah, Pudy used to do that, and I have a 40-year-old launch puncture.

Then I got chicken pox, so I'm no longer sure which one it is.

And then there's the freckles.

And for some reason one year as an adult, I got a ton of fireworks scars. So basically I look like I had a bad time at toasting marshmallows in the nude weekend.

[cimorene]

I had parallel scratches like a Wolverine drawing across my chest from the time I was a preteen until I was in my late 20s from my childhood cat,but since then, at any given time it's just sort of a random spattering of little white lines. But when they were doing construction outside our building a couple years ago there were a lot of near-misses.

[signedwapo]

You could also try setting bowls of balsamic vinegar on window sills to evaporate, and another trick is doing much the same with coffee grounds. But yes, agreed with prior posters that the best thing is a heckin' strong dehumidifier!

[cimorene]

Balsamic, really? I've only ever heard white vinegar recommended for odor-killing. Is the windowsill placement to help it air out?

[signedwapo]

Sorry for extremely late reply, have been away from computer for several days!
Balsamic smells sweetish, but being vinegar also kind of works as an air scrubber. I found the windowsill placement just helped to speed it's evaporation and dispersal, in much the same concept as essential oil diffusers, but with no diffuser involved, especially if said window is closed for maximum balsamic-in-yer-house scent. Damp coffee grounds used in the same way do the same thing, with the added bonus of smelling of coffee, not vinegar if one prefers.

[cimorene]

Cool thanks, I'll keep it in mind!