August 30, 2007
Lately I've noticed an odd smell in my apartment. Nothing much, but when I'd come home from work I'd get a couple nosefuls of unpleasantness before my brain got tired of my nasal nerves sending up "OMGWTF" on constant loop and conveniently went numb to it.
After trying to air the place out, and spraying Febreeze, and hitting the mattress with bleach, I was at a loss. Then when I came home from bowling on Thursday it hit me -- this place smells like feet.
So I went to the Home Despot and rented a carpet cleaner. Kind of odd, using one on a non-empty apartment. For starters, you have to run one room at a time and wait a few hours for things to dry out so you can move furniture from one place to another. It took me four hours to get all the carpet; only 45 minutes or so was spent with the vacuum thing.
It's currently Sunday night, and I'm waiting for the living room and dining room to dry enough to move everything out of the bedroom. I've been using the Mac all afternoon and aside from the annoyance of not being able to use my mouse -- is a multi-button trackpad that tough to build? -- things have been going well.
The used water was pretty nasty; I'm pretty sure all the crud in the carpet was the source of the smell. I'll have to wait until I get home from work on Monday to be sure, since all I can smell now is the cleaner.
Edit, 8/30 8:36 PM: OK, I cleaned the carpets on Sunday, and washed the futon's cushion cover on Wednesday while hitting the cushion itself with bleach and Febreeze.
I can't tell any difference. Where the hell could the smell be coming from? I closed the bedroom door one morning when I left for work, thinking there was something in the mattress, but when I came back that day the bedroom was clean. It's something out in the living room but I can't imagine what it could be.
I guess I'll Febreeze the hell out of my computer chair tonight, but I can't bleach it since there's no cover I can take off. This is really starting to suck.
