Old Houses Smell Funny

At least ours does.  Part of it is Sophie (the dog).  She has a malady called Black Skin Disease, and one of the results of this is not only an ugly mangy looking dog, but a dog that smells Really Bad.  The past few days I've put her doggy bed out on the back porch (it's plenty nice out there), and we've shampooed her with a new product, something that's suppose to cut this problem (it also claims to work on cats and horses).  My optimism far out weighed the actual results-- she still smells, though she might not scratch as much.

Then there's the house cats and their litter boxes, which is still better than the dog.  There's that Musty-Old-House-Basement smell; and there's the pungent good Old-Wood smell; and the Old-Insulation aroma; and probably Mice (though I'm not going to blame the one mouse we see on a regular basis (the House Mouse, who's getting tame!), but I will blame the mice we probably don't see in the walls.  Once there was something Really Heavy bumping along the floor, up in the attic, across the living room ceiling, but no one wanted to climb the ladder in the kitchen closet and stick their head up through the opening in the floor-- no one was brave enough.  We surmised that it was either 1)  a raccoon  2)  a big possum or 3)  some Paranormal Something that should just stay where it was.  (This was shortly after we watched the movie, The Grudge, for the first time, so imaginations were running on high-- remember the attic scene?)

I burn incense, buy lots of air freshener (Glade's "lavender/vanilla" being my favorite), burn scented candles, and go through lots and lots of Febreeze. 

Sometimes it seems to help, and sometimes-- not so much.



Don't let appearances fool you, this house smells funny.