Seattle Maison

Summer 2017

Issue link: https://nest.uberflip.com/i/819621

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 22 of 31

Having pet odors inside your home can turn off potential home buyers and keep your home from selling. Ask your real estate agent for an honest opinion about whether your home has a pet smell—you may not smell it if you are living with it day to day. Wash your drapes and upholstery. Pet odors seep into fabrics. Launder, steam clean, or dry clean all your fabric window coverings. Steam clean upholstered furniture. Either buy a steam cleaner designed to remove pet hair for around $200 and do the job yourself, or pay a pro. You'll spend about $40 for an upholstered chair, $100 for a sofa, and $7 for each dining room chair if a pro does your cleaning. Clean your carpets. Shampoo your carpets and rugs, or have professionals do the job for $25 to $50 per room (try a Groupon to lessen the expense), depending on their size and the level of filth embedded in them. The cleaner will try to sell you deodorizing treatments. You'll know if you need to spend the extra money on those after the carpet dries and you have a friend perform a sniff test. If your agent holds their nose, here's how to get rid of the smell: Air your house out. While you're cleaning, throw open all the windows in your home to allow fresh air to circulate and sweep out unpleasant scents. Scrub thoroughly. Scrub bare floors and walls soiled by pets with vinegar, wood floor cleaner, or an odor-neutralizing product, which you can purchase at a pet supply store for $10 to $25. Try a 1:9 bleach-to-water solution on surfaces it won't damage, like cement floors or walls. Got a stubborn pet odors covering a large area? You may have to spend several hundred dollars to hire a service that specializes in hard-to-clean stains.

Articles in this issue

view archives of Seattle Maison - Summer 2017