Shaun
You know the smell we are talking about, a kind of musty, sour sort of odor like from a locker room or a male teenager’s bedroom (I have 2 teenage boys). It is a smell that lingers and gets deep into the rug, curtains, and furniture. But how do you get rid of a man-smell in your room?
The key to getting rid of man-smell in your room and eliminating odor is prevention. Keep dirty laundry under a closed lid, make sure the room is well ventilated and clean regularly.
Of course, nothing is that simple. One of the main rooms of the house where there is likely to be a man-smell lingering will be your man cave.
Prevention is the first step but there are other things you can do to keep your room smelling fresh. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can do to get rid of that smell.
Table of Contents
Find The Source
Finding the source of your odor is the first priority. Things like laundry bins, garbage cans, food, or anything else that may cause an unpleasant odor should be contained or removed.
Your trash can and laundry should have a well-fitting lid and, it wouldn’t hurt to throw some baking soda or deodorizer into the can first so the odor won’t escape.
Do Your Laundry
If the cause is coming from the or your dirty clothes pile, then make sure you do your laundry more often or at least keep it contained. Masking it with one of those air fresheners is only going to cover it up, you need to actually clean to get rid of it entirely.
If the clothes you are wearing stink, that can be a bigger problem. The odor will not only fill the air but rub off onto your furniture, causing a more long-term issue.
Wear clean breathable clothing to prevent sweating. And hey fellas, there’s always the shower. If your room has a man stink it came from you, so shower as needed (or more).
Deodorize Those Tennis Shoes
Other things can also cause bad odors in your house. Another biggie is stinky, dirty shoes. One thing that can help is to make sure you are wearing clean socks every day.
You can also get some of those odor eater shoe liners and try putting them into your shoes. Baking soda is also your friend in this situation, as you can sprinkle some into your shoes at night, and then dump it into the trash in the morning. It’s a twofer!
Wash Those Gym Clothes Right Away
We already touched on laundry but if you work out then gym clothes need to be taken care of right away.
What do you do with that gym bag full of those nasty sweaty gym clothes? If you get home and throw them in the corner, you are not alone. However, that is a good way to spread that stanky man-smell.
Be sure to get those dirty clothes out of that bag and into the laundry as soon as you get home! And be sure to wash yourself off when you get home too if you didn’t do it at the gym.
Getting Rid Of Carpet Stink
If your carpet really stinks, run out and rent a carpet cleaner to give yourself a good starting point.
Carpets soak up a lot of bad smells. Again, baking soda is a great choice for odor control. Just sprinkle it all over the rug, let it sit for about 30 minutes, and then vacuum it up. Baking soda isn’t dangerous like spraying tons of air freshener into the air.
Actually, there’s a great homemade air freshener you can make using a spray bottle, three cups of water, one cup of vodka, and ten to twenty drops of some essential oil. Then you can spray it around anywhere there are bad odors. It works great!
What some may not know is that the carpet odor could be due to the padding underneath, as spills, pet accidents, etc. can soak through the carpet into the padding.
Getting Rid Of Odor In Your Drapes
First off there’s a homemade fabric freshener you can make that’s easy to make and much cheaper than the commercial kind. All you need is a cup of water, a cup of vinegar, a half teaspoon of vegetable glycerin, and a half teaspoon of essential oil.
Just put it into a sprayer and spray carpets, drapes, or other fabrics. You can also use that vodka spray mentioned earlier.
Another way to get rid of the smell in drapes is to put your drapes into a paper bag along with some baking soda. Close up the bag and shake it a few times, let the bag sit overnight, remove drapes, shake off the excess baking soda and your drapes should smell a lot better.
Getting Rid Of Stink In Drawers
If you have some musty drawers or a musty closet, here is a trick, homemade sachets. You just take an old clean handkerchief, fill up the middle with some dried herbs or some dried flower or potpourri. Then tie it up and hang up or place the sachets wherever you need to get rid of a man-smell or other bad odor.
If you can get your hands on some cologne samples from magazines you can keep them in the drawer as well. If the smell starts to fade just give it a few squirts and put it back in. I keep a few in my sock drawer at all times.
Getting Rid Of Stink In Your Couch
You can use all the same things on the couch as the carpet or drapes, depending on the material it is made of. If it is leather and not fabric, take a clean cloth and dip it into a mixture of one part water to one part lemon juice and use that to wipe all over the leather to clean and refresh it. For couch cushions, you can take off the cover and set the foam inserts out in the sun for a while to get rid of the stink.
Throw It Out
This goes for anything. There are some things where the smell will just not come out or it might not be worth the effort. If the item has no sentimental value or is easily replaceable, just toss it.
Clean Out The Air
For one thing, you can invest in a good air purifier. It not only keeps the air from becoming stale, but it also takes out the bad smells along with the dust and allergy-causing particles floating around in the air. Make sure the one you get has a Hepa filter and that it’s cleaned on a regular basis.
Keeping the room ventilated is also vital. That means opening up the windows once in a while to get a breeze blowing out the bad air and bringing in the good air. If you want some air that smells really nice, then put a few drops of some kind of scented essential oil like peppermint or any other scent you love, onto a few cotton balls and place them in the window.
The breeze will go through these and make the room smell so much better. You can also cut a lemon in half and set the halves into the window. Another trick is to smear some vanilla extract onto a light bulb (not one that has been on for a while or you will get burnt) and when the bulb heats up after you turn it on, the essence of vanilla goes through the air.
Prevention, cleanliness, and air circulation are the trifecta that will keep your man cave smelling clean and inviting. Unless of course, you are trying to keep others away. Then disregard everything here. It should work.
How do you keep your man cave clean? Let us know in the comments below.
