Do you enjoy cooking but hate the smell that lingers behind for several hours after you have prepared a meal? Would you like to prevent those cooking smells from making their way upstairs into your bedroom, bathroom, and guestroom?
I know right?
If you live in an apartment, you might not want to burden your upstairs neighbors with the smell of your food. If they have complained about the strong scent of certain foods that you regularly prepare at home, you might feel frustrated and unsure of what to do.
You have a right to prepare what you want to eat, but you also want to keep the peace and avoid having problems with your neighbors. No matter your reason for wanting to put a stop to the unwanted cooking odor that is left behind, we would like to share some of the easiest and most practical ways for you to stop odors from spreading out, lingering on, and going upstairs. These foolproof methods have been tested and are fully effective.
Ventilate the Home During and After Cooking a Meal
If you know that you are getting ready to cook something for dinner, breakfast, or even lunch, you should start opening the windows inside the home. Even if it is a bit chilly outside, it will soon start warming up when you have the oven and stovetop on, so you do not have to worry about getting too cold while cooking.
Leaving the windows open a bit will allow some of the food odor to exit the home instead of staying put in one spot. When you keep the kitchen and other areas of the home well-ventilated while preparing your food, you can expect to get rid of the odor a bit easier because plenty of fresh air is coming through.
Another idea for getting rid of cooking smells is to install skylights in your kitchen that have the ability to easily open and close. If you don’t already have some, these could be a great addition to your home. Not just to help with eliminating bad odors, but also bring natural light to your home.
Along with opening those windows and keeping them that way until you have finished preparing the meal and have washed the dishes with the odor on them, you should use a ventilation system in the kitchen.
The kitchen vent filters the air and helps eliminate some of the heat and odors that will come from the kitchen as you cook. Leave the vent running while you cook and when you are eating your food to make sure it is doing its job of getting rid of those strong odors. When you cook certain foods, such as fish, onions, or even steak, you may notice that the scent lingers on for too long. However, properly ventilating the home is one of several ways for you to keep the odors from lingering too long.
Use Baking Soda Throughout the Home to Eliminate the Odor
Baking soda is an affordable product that is known for its ability to absorb unwanted odors. People often place it in the fridge to keep the fridge smelling fresh while preventing it from having a bit of a stale odor to it. The sodium bicarbonate in the baking soda is what helps to remove odors from different areas. If you know you are getting ready to cook and it is something that will usually leave a strong odor in your home, consider filling up a few small containers of baking soda and placing them around the home, paying special attention to the kitchen area because that is where the scents originate from when you cook. You can place a container of the baking soda by the oven or the stovetop where you will do your cooking and you can have another one on the kitchen table.
While baking soda does help eliminate odors, it is not necessarily going to work right away. That should not deter you from using it. If you leave the baking soda out long enough, you will notice the scent of the food is going away. You should leave it out overnight to avoid smelling the food odor when you get up in the morning. If you do not want to pour the baking soda into a bunch of containers, you can always choose to open boxes of it and place those boxes all around, using the baking soda each day when you decide to cook something that has way too strong of an odor to it.
Boil a Combination of Ingredients to Get Rid of the Food Odor
If you would like to make the air smell fresh and clean, you can boil a few different ingredients in a large pot while you are preparing a meal or immediately after. Alternatively, you can use an air purifier in your kitchen while you are cooking.
Not sure exactly what to boil?
You have plenty of options. You can fill a large part with two cups of water, two cups of vinegar, and a handful of lemon slices. Bring the combination to a boil to get that lemon scent out into the air and then lower the heat to keep the pot simmering. Instead of having a strong odor of onions, curry, peppers, fish, or something else, you will have that fresh and clean lemon scent inside the home.
If you are not a big fan of the original lemon scent, you do have a lot of other options. You can add the water and vinegar into the pot with lime slices, cinnamon sticks, or even orange slices. Some people like to throw handfuls of mint leaves into the pot to give their home a mint-like scent. No matter what you prefer to use, this is such a simple way to keep your home smelling good while preventing food odors from spreading throughout the home. Make sure you leave the pot simmering for several hours to eliminate all traces of food odors from inside the property.
Use an Air Cleaner While Preparing Your Meals
Do you have an air cleaner at home? If not, you should perhaps think about getting one. You can find a variety of air cleaners on Amazon. You can keep an air cleaner running while you are cooking. Make sure to turn it on right before you start preparing your food. You want to have it running to help with the process of purifying the air and removing contaminants that are causing the odor to linger. Many people use air cleaners to get rid of the scent of cigarettes inside the home, but these products do not just work for tobacco scents. In fact, they are often quite effective at eliminating strong odors. Although there are some expensive options on the market, you can find reasonably priced air cleaners online that work just as well.
Use Vinegar in the Kitchen While Cooking
The strong scent of vinegar such as the one from Heinz which you can get on Amazon, is known to help fight odors, too. There are several ways for you to use vinegar to get rid of strong unwanted odors after you have prepared a meal.
You can add a cup or two of vinegar to a pot, bring it to a boil, and then allow it to simmer to help with the absorption of odors. If you do not want to smell a strong vinegar scent, you can add a few drops of essential oil of your choice to help with masking the vinegar scent. Some good essential oils to use include lemon, lavender, and orange essential oils.
Although you can bring it to a boil and simmer it, you can also place it into containers and put the containers full of vinegar in different parts of the home. Place one large container of vinegar in the kitchen where you are preparing the meal and then put one smaller container of vinegar in each of the other rooms throughout the first floor of the property. The vinegar will trap some of the odor that comes from the food you are cooking to leave the home smelling a lot better than it did before.
Why You Should Follow These Helpful Tips to Eliminate the Odors
If you cook all the time, you have probably noticed strong odors that come from some of the meals you make. If these odors tend to last for several hours or even days, you are going to want to know what you can do to put a stop to them, especially if you are tired of smelling food when you are trying to get in bed and get some rest. Unfortunately, using air fresheners would not do much. Air freshening products will typically only mask the odor of the food for a small amount of time. Once the scent from the air freshener goes away, your home will smell like food all over again.
Instead of wasting money on products that mask the odor instead of eliminating it, follow these different tips to successfully prevent odors from lingering upstairs and into your bedroom. You can use several of these methods simultaneously to get rid of the odor even faster. For example, you might want to open the windows, keep the vent running, and boil a combination of ingredients to freshen the air, such as lemon with vinegar and water. After following these helpful and effective tips, you will never need to worry about cooking odors lingering inside the home for too long again.
