A lovely musky old blanket accord.

Does our house smell funny to you? It smells a little bit weird to me. Does it smell weird to you? Stand in this corner right here. Do you smell it now? Go outside and take a few deep breaths, then come back in. How about now?

We are not so very dirty, and even have a cleaner come in twice a month to make things even less dirty, because we are decadent. However, we also have a cat and there is something inadequately freshening about the air currents in this house, because where I would prefer it to smell like the outdoors after a good clean rain, it instead smells gently but distinctly suboptimal.

The top note is a faint but not entirely eradicated whiff of cat pee, legacy of some years-old expression of feline displeasure. It slumbers most of the time but perks into life when it gets really humid--some hidden crystalline reserve that is being reconstituted by fresh hydration? There are undercurrents of damp, from the basement, and stuffiness, from not always flinging all the windows open. In winter it also smells of hot dust, from the ductwork.

Last night's dinner, whatever it may have been on any given day, adds its little something. And the other side of the duplex, where the owners live, contains two big dogs as well as two cats, and though they are very nice people, I have found when we have fed the cats for them while they are out of town that their side is oppressively redolent of golden retriever. Some tendrils of this redolence may also subtly contribute to the atmosphere in our half of the building.

(This reminds me of a story. Once Snark and I were driving across the country and we stopped in a small town one evening, the fourth of July as it happened, actually, to spend the night. The town was pleasant enough, except that it smelled terrible.

Is it a meat rendering plant? we asked one another. A paper mill? Those smell bad, don't they? A tannery? Do you suppose the people who live here even smell it anymore? Maybe only when they go out of town and come back. Are they embarrassed to have their relatives come to visit?

Then on our way out of town we stopped at a grocery store to get more ice for our cooler and saw a copy of the local paper. Giant headline:

STINKY!

Apparently someone had illegally dumped some pig carcasses right at the edge of town, stinking up the whole municipality and providing the top news item of the day, if not the week or month. So yes, the people who lived there could indeed smell it.)

Anyway, it is making me lose my mind to think that we might have a Stinky House, a House of Pong, a house of do they even know how it smells? I have been neurotically reading all about electric air purifiers of various sorts and imagining them whirring away scrubbing the air to a perfect adulterant-free state, like so much distilled water.

I expect that I will place an order for one of these, the image is just too enticing. Maybe I should also replace all our furniture with lumps of activated charcoal. That would be chic. No one would have anything bad to say about our house then.

Comments

[Amy]

I know this exact feeling. Part of our house smell is because of the cats, part because of the lack of cross breezes, part is the humidity. I want a house that smells like fresh air and herbs or at least freshly baked cookies. I've been on a mission of sprinkling the carpet with lavender oil scented baking soda and enzyme treating various spots of cat, er, attitude, all while chanting my mantra of, "Never again wall to wall carpeting."

[redfox]

Amy!!

[Amy]

Hello!