Yum or yuk? The nose decides long before the eyes!

I have a rug that I love! It's thick and soft and a favorite spot for my grandkids to play or watch TV. It's also in the top 3 of my 2 dogs' favorite sleeping spots. After about 6 months, the rug that the vacuum haltingly jerks across in all its shagginess, stinks like the dogs right about the time they need a trip to the groomer. Either the smell comes out, or the whole rug goes. My grandkids heard this and all said in unison, "not the soft comfy rug!"

A seller's second worst enemy when showing their home is offensive house smells (offensive is a relative term--even among fragrances--

Does your home smell like your pet?

not everyone likes every scent), but far worse is a seller's nose blindness! I knew there had to be a medical term for this, so I looked it up: specific anosmia [but I digress...].

I was out with a buyer one afternoon, and on our list of stops was a home that had a particularly strong cooking odor from fish. She never got past the foyer, and asked if we could leave, so strong was her aversion to that particular smell. Conversely, it's been my anecdotal experience that houses which are clean and tidy, and smell faintly fragrant, sell faster and for more money. I've never conducted a poll, and neither the MLS nor Zillow, etc., have a field called Smell-o-Vision, but my buyers over the years have virtually always had a different reaction upon entering [let me say this again for effect] faintly fragrant homes that were also clean and tidy. If a buyer isn't quick enough in a seller's market, these cream puffs are gobbled up fast!

Our olfactory sense has a longer memory and a quicker reaction than our eyes, ears, or gray matter. It's instantaneous and that's how fast a particular listing makes it to the top of the list of favorite homes or something that will be remembered only as the smelly house. Cooking odors aren't alone either! We all love our own pets, but not necessarily the aroma of someone else's!

Get a disinterested third party to do a sniff test for you. It might even turn out you're the only one who can smell something you think is bad, but it's just in your head (coincidentally where the nose is located). Don't put it on your realtor, though! Some of our tribe are bold enough to kindly tell you and offer suggestions, but others would rather die than risk insulting you. Never mind that it could be the difference between selling and a stale listing, with the days on market racking up and even celebrating anniversaries.

Back to my Austin Powers rug--it's summer, with no rain in the forecast, so out on the deck it goes for a serious shampooing and some bacteria-killing sunshine. The family room now smells like....nothing. My daughter confirms this the next day--nothing. Sometimes, nothing is a good alternative. I'll work on pleasant later.

PS...I stuck my nose right into that soft comfy rug the next day and came up fast for oxygen. Because my grandkids like it's softness, and I just like the look of it, it's gets one last chance with a concoction of some simple ingredients I have at home. After that, I will grudgingly admit defeat to smelly dog odor. Note to self: no more shaggy, soft, and comfy rugs--they're like oversized petrie dishes!