My mom has dementia and we have hospice coming in and tending to her 5 days a week. She is getting plenty of bathes but her clothes and room still smells. Washing her laundry now has the washer and dryer smelling as well. Everything I wash now smells like her. I have tried bleach and other cleaners but I can't stand the smell anymore. Need advice.
For her bedroom, I would open her windows as much as weather permits to air it out. To me, there is no other better sanitizer and clean scent smell than wiping and cleaning everything down with pine sole.
Then you can use candle melts or whatever, if you prefer.
The key to her bedroom is you got to "clean" the scent out.
I used a mild deodorant soap on Mom. Vinegar may help but you may want to try drying outside. Urine smells tend to come back when dried in a dryer. Vinegar smell will dissipate. I have done the vinegar in a bowl and it works. I saw a difference in just a couple of hours. I was using Arm and Hammer detergent thinking the baking soda in it would help but it didn't. Went back to Tide. I used the scent boosters but found it was too much "scent".
I would use borax in the washer and vinegar in the rinse cycle.
I am sensitive to fragrance, but I can use essential oil diffusers as air fresheners without any adverse reactions. Love lavender, orange, grapefruit and bergamot, clean, relaxing and long lasting. Lemon and may chang is a really vibrant one, energizing and clean.
Pretty sure you can order it or you could try a health food store or if you have an Asian market near you it might be found there. (It is a Japanese soap)
You at least have a heads up with those two.
I must didn't use the right mixture.
I recommend going to everydaycheapskate.com and checking out her diy cleaners. They have been tried and tested and offer great results. I haven't had to scrub a bathtub in over a decade using Mary's shower cleaner.
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.
I know a woman that went to bed with a cigarette in her hand. She burned a part of her bed. Thank God, she woke up and was able to put out the fire.
She lives in the upstairs part of the condo that her daughter owns.
Her daughter has severe allergies and can barely stand the reek of smoke when she goes to see her mom.
Of course she still smokes! She has smoked since she was 15 and says it is a very tough habit for her to break. She has tried to quit many times but always goes back to smoking.
She drives her daughter crazy! Her daughter has threatened to have her move if she doesn’t stop smoking but doesn’t have the courage to follow through on her threats. It’s sad for both of them.
I was simply pointing out that my mom's place is stinky (and there's no use sugarcoating this and saying it's not) and my MIL's place is immaculate and smells extremely clean. I mean no disrespect, and neither does anyone else. Once you get furniture and carpets that have been saturated with urine--you just want to cry. Mom's visitors are always kind, but they will also often comment on the smells. I can't do anything about, and it makes me sad.