I swear that I ought to start charging every real estate agent that says that he or she is going to show my house but doesn't and every agent that shows up an hour late a missed appointment fee. That way, when I wake up like I did this morning with my sinuses hurting so badly that I can barely touch my cheekbones, I'll have the money to go buy a bottle of Tylenol or Excedrin. I have already tried both Benadryl and Zyrtec-D, but neither antihistamine has phased the pressure.I know what caused it--the half a bottle of fake Febreeze that I sprayed around my house yesterday. I had intended to get up bright and early to steam clean the carpet yesterday, but like I explained in one of my previous posts, I stayed up late reading. Thus, I didn't get around to steam cleaning the carpet until about 3 p.m.
I don't know how many of you use enzyme cleaners like Pet-Zyme or Simple Solutions in your carpet cleaners, but for those of you who do you're probably aware that the enzymes in the cleaner need time to work. The odor that you're trying to get rid of by steam cleaning doesn't just magically disappear five minutes after you run the cleaner over the carpet. The enzymes have to slowly eat away at the stain and the accompanying odor. Sometimes the odor is even worse immediately afterwards because the steam cleaner may have stirred up the smell by rewetting the spot of urine or other odor-causing agent.
I prefer the enzyme cleaners to the scented stuff. It has been my experience that while the scented stuff makes the house smell better initially, the odor always comes back. Nevertheless, the slow pace of the enzyme cleaners can be inconvenient, especially when you have your house on the market. Thus, when the house still smelled faintly of urine yesterday afternoon, I dragged the fake Febreeze out from under the kitchen sink and sprayed the carpet several times over. I think it helped the smell, but unfortunately it didn't help my sinuses. They're killing me.
One of these days maybe they'll invent an odor neutralizer that doesn't have an odor itself. Until then, I may just have to get used to the fact that my sinuses will be set to explode every morning after a showing or planned showing. It's not something that I want to get used to, but in today's market I really don't think that I have a choice.
