Old House Smell or Something More?

When we moved in to our first home, there was a series of – shall we say – unfortunate events that happened within the first few months after we moved in. Bear (the dog who didn’t eat pizza) cut her foot on a huge chunk of glass left in the backyard (which required surgery and four weeks in a cast), our basement flooded, and an upstairs toilet leaked and caused the downstairs bathroom ceiling to fall in. At one point, I looked at Dear Husband and asked, “Should we have bought this house?”

Of course, everything worked out fine. Yes, we had to make a bunch of repairs to the home, but it was 40 years old and that happens. We lived there for more than a decade and it was amazing.

Now we’re in the 1929 House and, again, we’ve had a series of unfortunate events. We’ve had basement flooding, the Comcast leak, rotting joists, sagging floors, and even a rogue squirrel (or two…or three…).

Lately, we’ve had a musty, funky smell in our family room. I know that the mold is gone from the Comcast disaster, so it’s not that.

Click HERE for what to do if you have or suspect you have mold in your home.

This smell was like the Tell Tale Heart of our home. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

I washed down all the furniture, twice. I Febreezed and Lysol-ed everything. I swapped out the area rug. I closed the flue. I weatherstripped the doors. We had the air tested and there was still a little mold but nothing alarming.

But the smell was still there.

And it seemed to be isolated around the vents in the addition to our house. Aha!

(Editor’s Note: This makes it sound like it was easy to find the source of the smell. It wasn’t. It took months.)

Yesterday, we had the ducts cleaned. And not just an amateur vacuuming. Oh no. We are talking Mack Daddy Duct Cleaning.

We had an environmental services company that works with our heating and air company come out and do it. They cleaned all the ducts and disinfected and sanitized them.

The leader of the crew said that he thought our home’s addition’s ducts had never been cleaned. We’re talking dust dating back to 1990, people.

The master suite staged, before we bought the home.

But the big question would be whether I would smell the musty funky smell in the morning. That’s when I always smelled it the most: right when I walked out of our bedroom, I smelled it at the top of the stairs, then again when I entered the family room.

So, this morning, I took a big whiff.

NO SMELL!

It’s finally gone!!

Hallelujah!

The thing about old houses is that they have these issues, right? I mean, I feel like my life is a special episode of Rehab Addict combined with Candid Camera. But these things happen.

And you know what? I have never once thought, “Should we have bought this house?”

I’ve always felt like this house was home. We’ve been here not even a year and a half and I feel like we’ve always lived here. I knew the minute we walked in that this is home. And if that means we have to fix a bunch of stuff, then we do.

Our house is the oldest house on our street. We are only the fifth owners of this house, an honor I take very seriously. This house has stood proudly since 1929 and I’m here to make sure it keeps on standing.

Take the tour of the 1929 home HERE.