How do you get the old people smell out of your laundry and home?

if she uses Depends, get the dirty ones out of the house as soon as possible. The floral-scented trash bags protect the trash barrel from odor absorption.

There are some wonderful pet products which chemically neutralize urine odors and work equally well for human accidents around the house (including upholstered furniture, mattresses, carpet). They can be purchased in spray bottles or by the gallon.

Puppy training pads work like the “chucks” used in hospitals, but they are disposable - one less smelly item for the washer.

Tide pods with Downy worked for me in the laundry. Washing soiled and wet clothing items immediately in hot water (or sanitary cycle) reduces the smell by killing bacteria.

If she had any accidents staining the carpet, there are some “spot” treatment machines which help greatly and work similarly to the larger Rug Doctor rentals.

OkieGranny, what type of fabric is the loveseat? If you want to PM me we can go over what I would recommend that way or here is fine.

This is not an answer but another question. What is the best thing to use on a love seat? My slob husband sits on it all day long and it smells. Yeah, I know. Get him to clean up his act. Believe me, I've tried.

Pinesol works very well when added to laundry. It doesn’t have a strong scent at all after drying in the dryer.

My mother is 98 years old and smells good. I bath her every day and wash her hair. I put lotion on her back and legs every day. I spray her room with a natural air freshener after I change her. Sheets are changed every week and when needed. I wash her sheets in hot water. Clothes on the warm cycle. I spray her favorite cologne on her every day and powder her. She has fresh clothes every day and some days she may wear the same thing, but they smell good and are clean. A hospital worker sniffed my mother and told me she was the best smelling older woman he ever smelled. I thought it was a little odd but funny comment. He actually was smelling her as he wheeled her to her room. I use honest cleaner and wash her from top to bottom. Make it a routine every day and I think you will smell the difference in a positive way.. Good luck.

Try soaking in a vinegar solution

Before you do the wash, fill the machine up with very hot water and a couple scoops of Oxy clean crystals which smell very nice. Then let the clothes and bedding soak in it for a couple hours. Add the laundry soap and do the wash. You can also add some Downy fragrance beads to it too and they're nice You don't have to use bleach unless you want to for washing whites. Oxy clean is a good product. Set the machine on for a double rinse if it has that feature. To get the "smell" out of her room will entail the entire room literally being washed down from ceiling to floor with cleaner and water. Then if there is carpeting it will have to be shampooed and maybe more than once. Sometimes in situations like yours the rugs have to be shampooed several times. Also, it helps to use disposable bed pads which are waterproof. They're changed daily and thrown away.

Midkid58, I’m with you on this one. We aren’t trying to be rude. It really is a sad situation. If I could change my mothers clothes, believe me I would. Unfortunately, she has severe mental ill illness, refuses to bathe, refuses to let me wash her hair, refuses to change her clothes and lives in a stinky hoarded house. That is the reality. The LAW says that if someone is competent and of sound mind, they can live any way they want. My mother lives alone in her hoarded 2 story house. Her choice.

I can’t change her. She won’t let ANYBODY help her. I didn’t cause this and I can’t cure it. It is just a sad situation all the way around.

"breathegreen charcoal purifying bag" - www.breathegreeneco.com may help to rid of the malodorous smell.

Just my opinion, but that sounds very rude. Some day you will be old and someone will be trying to get YOUR smell off of stuff. Once a month you should be cleaning your washer, especially if it's a front loader. You put 1 cup of bleach in the tub and set to "clean". Also, wash her clothes MORE OFTEN and don't let her wear them day after day after day. Most likely, the foul smell is a build-up of perfume and deodorant. A lot of older people don't wash their clothes as often as they should. I cherish my mom. She is precious no matter how she smells.

My Mom has incontinence issues and I had the same problem until I started adding a cup or so of pinesol lemon scent to the wash water along with the regular laundry soap. Works like a charm and was much friendlier on the budget than the lysol laundry sanitizer, which is hard to find in my area anyway. I would also wipe down the inside of your dryer with a damp rag with a little pinesol on it as well.

Odo-Ban is an excellent product and readily available. Disinfects too.

My Mom too & that bizzare funk smell is gross TRUST ME ON THIS I’m living your life. My friend suggested & I bought A GREEN AIR PRO MACHINE. Cleans the air even gets smoke out of paint in walls carpets every thing. Look online the one I have did the job has a timer fan covers 3500 sq ft.I had a carpet guy steam & deodorize the carpets he walked in and said do you have someone sick or did someone die Here. Find a clean air machine all the spray does is mask the odors. YOUR NOT ALONE IN ALL THIS HANG TIGHT.

Concentrated room sprays from Bath and Body Works and they last a looong time.

Add Borax when doing a wash load. Instructions are on the box.

If one of the sources of the smell is from incontinence, then use a product that is meant to get rid of pet urine. I have the caregivers splash a bit in with the laundry soap. It makes all the difference. We are using Nature's Miracle, but other brands may work too.

My daughter bought a home previously owned by smokers. They had to rent and run an oxygen machine for 3 straight days and could not be in the house. It worked, I wonder if something like that would help in the future?

Someone else suggested Mary Hunt's everydaycheapskate.com website. One product I learned about from her is Nok-Out, or its hospital-grade version, snIper. We had a cat spray in our house -- you know how awful that is! I followed the directions and just as promised the smell got worse because the enzymes were interacting. Sprayed again a day later and boom, no more odor. I keep a gallon jug on hand all the time and use it for my husband's pillow and recliner. And thanks to Mary, I also keep a bottle of vinegar next to the wash machine for those stinky loads of laundry, especially the towels. I don't like fake scents -- candles, sprays, etc because they are just chemicals you are adding to your environment that only change the smell, rather than removing it.

Try a cup of white vinegar in the wash cycle. It’s one of the cheapest solutions. Great on removing urine smells too.

You may be dealing with "oil odors" as well as "nitrogenous waste odors". Try small amount of dish soap that is a "grease buster" to deal with oil-based scents. Try products in pet aisle for urine and fecal accidents for waste-based scents. If she has carpeting, you may need to pull it up since the pads are probably soaking up the scent. Try covering her mattress with a plastic bag-type mattress cover too. If she has kidney problems, the breakdown of urine products are deposited in the skin. Use gentle soaps that have lemon oil to combat personal odors that linger on her.

I totally know what u mean!! It takes a while to get ride of it somehow... I didn’t notice these while I had mom, but since then I’ve discovered the freshener beads that help with odors. Maybe those would help.

I use the snuggle fabric softener for super odors and arm and hammer laundry detergent with fabric softener for clothes. Use an odor eliminator that is oranges from home depot. Eliminates odors, not just covers them up.

I echo the lemon verbena soap idea. And big bags of lemon verbena itself (you can use as cushions in places where the elderly sit) can really help. Hung up herbs drying round the house are helpful and don't add to indoor pollution. Worth trying in lots of "smelly" conditions.

I have used a Lysol wash product-a blue liquid comes in a white plastic bottle with a blue lid. Has a nice fresh smell to revive anything that is washable. Find it in the laundry isle. Depending on where you live and what big box is near by you might have to search on line first. It says to put in the rinse cycle but i found it was a bit too strong for me. so i but in during the wash cycle. It is not bleach so it will not hurt the fabrics.

Mom's house reeks. She'd had so many overflows with her cath bag on her recliner, and she'd just put a dry towel and another blanket on it. Her carpet was 22 years old and it took all 4 of us kids to tell YB he HAD to replace it--when he ripped out the carpet, the padding was ruined with urine and other spills. At some point, you cannot clean carpet well enough.

When she used to let me clean the first thing I did was open all the windows (which had not been open since the LAST time I'd cleaned). Sadly, the smells (primarily of cooking fat and urine) has simply saturated the walls and floors and clothes. Replacing the floor with wood laminate helped a lot. But the 'TV room' still had carpet. Last time I cleaned it, the water I pulled out of it was thick and black--I do not know how she got it so dirty.

She shares w/d with SIL. SIL runs vinegar and pet urine remover through the machine, but the dryer still has a smell of urine. Mom can't smell it.

Cleaning, deep cleaning is your best bet. I love bleach and use it a lot. Also vacuuming fabric surfaces on the reg. Smells can get into everything. She has waaaay too much 'stuff' in her place and it all smells. She's 'left me' a bedroom set, which, frankly, I won't take b/c although it's lovely, it smells so awful.

One weird thing I discovered that I use at home is a few crumpled up sheets of newspaper in the bottom of the trash. Kills the smell of the trash and buys you and extra day. I'd do this in mom's 'diaper pail' but she'd get mad, so I leave well enough alone.

On the flip side, my MIL's house smells fantastic. She has it cleaned every week, but there is literally NO bad smell there. She opens windows every day and bleaches her bathrooms and gets her trash out pronto. She is immaculate in her personal hygiene and I think that is a big factor.

Both my Grandmothers lived alone into their 90's. Their places smelled not just clean, but 'sweetly clean'. One gma made her own soap! and her place was so sweet. The other employed a maid. I do not know why mom's place smells so awful and their places were sweet and clean.

My H developed this and I shaved his chest and underarms then bought those scrubby gloves and scrubbed him with dial soap, rinsed, then scrubbed him with nice foamy soap. The shaving and scrubby gloves worked wonders. You would not believe the dead skin particles that came off of the gloves when I rinsed them!!!

Try lemon verbena soap (on her) and lemon verbena laundry detergent on her stuff. It smells wonderful and I've found it to be a great deodorizer for tough smells. I don't have old people smell to contend with, but my husband's hobbies result in seriously stinky laundry.

I don't have that problem but I did have a problem with kitchen towels retaining a strong oily smell. I tried everything to no avail. My son who works in the food industry gave me a tip that worked for that. You could try it and see if it works. Very simple: when washing use a slightly less amount of detergent but throw in a dishwasher pod. Yep, 1 dishwasher pod. It worked and my towels are now fresh and no longer retains that oily smell. Give it a try and see if that works. For the house smell I have no idea, sorry.

I have tried vinegar with doing laundry and cleaning. Didn't work for me.

I must didn't use the right mixture.

I'm sorry...I just saw this and wickedly thought...get rid of the old people...sorry...LOL. Seriously would say I'd open windows while the weather is holding, lay out some bowls of baking soda (seriously, it works for other things). I'd also get some of those packets for cleaning the interior of the washing machine...I think the one called Affresh has the good housekeeping seal...Don't know what to do for the dryer, but I'd google the question for ideas.