You walk through the entrance, pull out your luggage, and suddenly… Something feels different. Not bad, just different. Unfamiliar. You have walked in and out of this very same house for years. And now, it smells like somewhere else.

The first reason is about you, not your house

Your sense of smell changes all the time. Live with a smell, and your brain gets used to it. Which is how you don’t realise how much your home smells when you live in it. A couple of weeks go by, and your olfactory system (your sense of smell) starts to reset. Then you come back, and your fresh, new-smelling nose finds what was always there but wasn’t noticed before.

The second reason involves the air that hasn’t circulated for weeks

If your windows are closed and you have reduced the temperature on your heat or air conditioning to save money, then you haven’t circulated the air inside the house. So as the other scents settle and become stronger as they would in a normal environment, the air becomes stale. Simply opening some windows for 30 minutes may make the worst of that staleness disappear.

The third reason is more subtle than people think; soft surfaces absorb moisture

People tend to overlook towels, washcloths, bathmats, pillows, etc. They retain moisture long after we leave. Humidity builds up quickly and remains until the air circulates. We may see mould grow due to the water retained by the soft surfaces, but this is not a necessary step for us to understand. These items are able to absorb much greater amounts of moisture than people imagine. They will let their absorbed moisture escape slowly, which is part of why the odour appears to be coming from everywhere yet from nowhere at the same time if you have had pets in the past or cooked certain foods, etc. The longer stillness allowed these scents to seep further into the fibres, making the carpets look dirty until cleaned. Hiring carpet cleaning services, you can properly remove many unwanted smells and dirt.

The last couple of reasons are simple

An empty trash can can contain a small amount of the odour of whatever was sitting in it. A refrigerator can also produce a dull odour because it has been shut off for several days. Both reasons aren’t big, but together add to that ‘This isn’t my home’ feeling.

Some ideas to speed things along

Take advantage of having two outside doors to allow a cross breeze instead of getting just one area of fresh air. Use your exhaust fans in your bathrooms & kitchens for a little bit. Inspect the areas where items that might have gotten wet before leaving.

All of the above should take less than an hour, and depending on how well Things work for you, your Home should start settling back into itself by tomorrow morning.