Well, the fire department came and put out a fire in your home. You had all the necessary repairs taken care of and now everything is back to normal, almost. Many times long after a fire has been extinguished and nearly forgotten, you are still reminded of it every time you take you breathe because that nauseating fire smell still lingers in the air even if you have already repaired and maybe repainted. If you had to have a professional come in and help take care of the after fire mess, then they knew what to do about the smell as well, but if you did not have a professional the smell is probably still around.



Getting rid of that disgusting smell can be a little tricky and require a little determination and effort. You can use air fresheners until you go broke and still not be rid of it. You have to eliminate the odor from all of the things it absorbed into. This can require a lot of cleaning of things that did not appear to even be affected by the fire. Even if certain things did not really have any soot residue on them, they can still hold the odor of the fire.

Anything fabrics or textiles like your furniture upholstery, draperies, and carpets or rugs will hold that fire odor until they are deodorized and possibly water or dry cleaned as well.. You might be able to use a carpet powder that deodorizes and then vacuum it up, but when the smell is bad, a cleaning with a shampooer and deodorizing cleaner will likely be necessary. The same goes for draperies and furniture upholstery. You might even have to check your closets for any clothes, bed linens, and towels that are holding the smell as well. This might seem like a lot of laundry or dry cleaning to do, but it may be necessary to rid your home of the smell.

Even up in your attic or down in the basement can keep that smell for a long time. Use open boxes of baking soda scattered through out the area to help absorb smells there. If you have any old fabric items stored in the basement or attic that smell and can be thrown out, this might be preferable to trying to clean all of them.

If you are running a central heating and air unit, change the filters several times after the fire and this might help to remedy some of the smell as well. Of course, you will need to wipe down all the surfaces in the home with a deodorizing cleaner to truly get rid of it everywhere, this will probably mean all floors, walls and ceilings. When you think of all the cleaning that might have to be done to solve the smell problem, going ahead and hiring a professional cleaner might not be such a bad idea after all.